


or what you will

by poisonrain



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Theatre, it's split between Lexa and Clarke's POV after the first chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7248079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonrain/pseuds/poisonrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke laughs. “What, you mean the sapphic soliloquy?” </p><p>Lexa's chest twists at the term, nails carving patterns into her palms. Because Clarke is, quite probably, maybe, most likely, straight, because Clarke is straight, and it sounds... strange, that's all, like hearing an old turn of phrase that the world stopped using for a while.</p><p>“Yes. I guess, it seems a little ridiculous to be inciting “all the legions of hell” in the name of “true love,” when they've known each other all of five minutes.”</p><p>Lexa pretends she hasn't been blinded, brightened, since that day at the theatre// chased by clouds of lilac potion, a witchcraft drew me to this moment.</p><p>“I don't think so.”</p><p>(A Shakespeare AU; it's a Shakespeare AU).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“ _... but sometimes delights are just that: delightful... and love, too, may bleed the same colour as violence”-_ Shakespeare; re-imagined.

Lexa stares down at the crumpled flyer in her too-tight grip, cursing the fact that she waited _this_ late to pick up some extra credit. Now the only “extra curricular” (as if, you know, regular “circulars” weren't enough) with vacant spaces is drama club, and why on earth would _Columbia_ care about some cobbled-together prepubescent production of Twelfth Night? _Short answer: they probably won't._

She wishes away the three months spent writing poetry recited only to her cat, planning her “rewarding and, frankly, incandescent” life as an English major, without actually putting in any of the effort. If only Lexa had listened to Anya's rather inconvenient three am texts, urging her to “seize the day,” via nonsensical acronyms that required google to translate. One viewing of 'Dead Poets Society,' and-

The hiss of the hallway boiler interrupts her internal monologue (apparently, she's already well versed in the role of sea captain #4 or incognito set painter), directing Lexa's attention once more to the sign reading “Auditions here!” above the hall.

She smiles slightly at the accompanying sketch of a single violet, vines spilling over the edges of the make-shift sketch pad. It's pretty good. Okay, it's really pretty good, but she's allowed to sulk over her self-inflicted predicament. (That is, of course, until Lexa recognises the pun on Viol _a,_ slapped in the face by her tenth grade copy of Shakespeare's original).

“Are you here for the auditions, Lexa?” Great, now the science department are switching sodium for set design, ditching beakers in the name of “wewillrockyou.”

“Uh, yes,” she mumbles, adding a “Dr Griffin” for the sake of social courtesy, never quite sure how to act around “real” adults who aren't her parents.

Her bio teacher musters a quasi-cheery grin, no doubt having spend the past hour grading largely uninspiring (and incorrect) test papers. She pushes open the hall door and motions for Lexa to follow, cutting short the extra five minutes that Lexa had mapped out for pacing wall to wall, and doing much of nothing.

“It's nice to see a change from our usual regurgitation of 'My Fair Lady,'” Dr Griffin muses, and her reluctant companion nods in acquiescence, muttering a few nuggets of truth regarding her love for all things Shakespearian.

For the first time in all her years as a “theatre nerd”- an epithet bestowed, rather fondly, by another of Anya's infamous late-night texts- Lexa prepares to experience the art from the other side of the curtain, and can't say she's all too thrilled about the prospect.

“Where should I go to-”

“Hey, mom, do you know-”

Once again, Lexa is cut off, though this time it's not by an overzealous heating appliance. Quite the opposite: it's the arrival of a girl, envy could not but call attractive. The mystery blonde smiles at her in apology, and it's one of those rare smiles, the kind that reaches a person's eyes and animates their pupils, flecks of gold-blue shining beneath the stage lights- a freeze-frame supernova, if every other toothless drag of upturned lips may be deemed nought more than nebula.

Lexa is staring, and she really doesn't mean to. (The other girl doesn't seem to mind, merely watches her watcher without reprimand).

“I'm Clarke,” she murmurs, in response to a question that Lexa didn't ask, though which, naturally, was implied in the way her Colosseum jawline successively set, cracked, collapsed, all in the vainest of efforts to match _Clarke_ 's (apparently, _unmatchable_ ) smile.

“Lexa.”

“Lexa,” Clarke parrots, musing this particular configuration of syllables, dragging out the letters, so her cosmic mouth can form constellations. “Cool.”

There stretches out a silence between the two, such that Lexa isn't really sure what on earth she's doing here or indeed why, just that the blonde has freakishly pretty eyes. Dr Griffin clears her throat.

“Clarke, perhaps you should take Lexa backstage, prepare her for the audition? You're reading Olivia's part, right?”

Her daughter (if the “mom” comment is any indication of familial status) seems happy enough to comply, after warning of “the yellow paint situation,” that she kindly entrusts Dr Griffin to “sort out.” (Whoever said that teenagers aren't utter delights?)

Lexa's nerves stutter and start as the pair of “basically strangers” head in the direction of the stage, xylophone ribs reduced to a disjointed symphony. She attributes her condition to audition jitters, the fear of reciting empty lines to a panel of teacher-judges, but when Clarke's arm brushes her own, Lexa is forced to consider “cute girl syndrome.”

_Spark shooting stars from shoulder blade to fingertip, haven't I waited long enough, to be touched by a galaxy// and rendered infinite?_

“Have you tried out for many plays before?”

It takes a few moments for Lexa to realise that Clarke is speaking, too busy trying to _un_ -loop the daisy chain from around her wrist, return her thoughts to an acceptable level of “appropriate.”

“No.” A pause. “Well, there was this one time...”

“I'm already intrigued.”

At that, Lexa launches into her story of the middle school nativity, characterized by built to fail sets and classroom politics, culminating in a mock sword fight for the role of the angel Gabriel. It's about as off-key as her internal orchestra, though Clarke's warm laughter makes the incoherent retelling just about worth it.

“I'm not really aiming for that this year,” she adds, reminding herself that this is a quid pro credit arrangement. “I was thinking of auditioning for a smaller role, maybe Maria or Antonio.”

Clarke feigns an expression of unadulterated horror, remarking that this year's “all girl production” (which was unknown to Lexa, though no doubt a welcome twist on the traditionally all-male classic) simply “wouldn't be complete” without her as Viola.

“You haven't even seen me act, yet.”

“I know, I just... I get this feeling, that's all.”

“Oh.”

Lexa wouldn't have thought it possible, but somehow Clarke's smile grows even brighter, solar system comprised of her lip to lip ratio.

“I'll go and get you a script,” she offers, disappearing in the direction of a rickety storage unit.

Lexa does _not_ watch her go, and certainly doesn't feel all that colder for her absence. (A few minutes around a dark set with velvet curtains, and she's already reaching Shakespeare-level melodramatics).

 

As it turns out, the masterminds behind this experimental production of tragi-comedy are none other than two math and three science teachers, with Dr Griffin's assertion that she “directed an elementary school production of something related to ballet” (with Clarke, no doubt, making an _adorable_ lead), serving as the tag-team's biggest boast of theatrical experience.

“Do your best with the script,” is the chorus, as the pair enter from the wings. “We're still waiting on someone or other from the English department to make some, um, _linguistic_ changes.”

“Good luck,” Clarke whispers, which goes some ways in untangling Lexa's spider-web anxieties, the news that they're about to recite “draft lines” hardly comforting her.

If Columbia don't appreciate the _sheer lengths_ that she's-

“How does he love me?” Clarke reads, eerily at ease in the skin of a stolen personality, a character whose conventions have bound them (albeit, not exclusively) to a page.

“He doesn't. Not as I could, if only I were he.” Oh, Lexa never quite expected the play to take _this_ direction. There's a first time for everything, apparently.

“Why, what would you, if you were he, or I was not _she_?”

The eighteen year old idiot inside of Lexa is desperate to stop and wax lyrical over Clarke's acting, though the Viola she's constructing merely rises to the challenge.

“Make me a willow cabin at your gate, unyielding and eternal. 'Tis not love to write of foolish attractions, offer your hallowed name to any element that may prove themselves deserving. We may be subjects of condemnation, not cantons, but they shan't pity us.”

“You might do much.”

“I might.”

And then there is subdued clapping and the scraping of chairs, and the spell of archaic poetry is broken once again. Somehow, both Clarke and Lexa have moved impossibly closer, as if puppets on strings, pulled by a chord that no one else can see.

“A marvellous first attempt,” the teachers seem to agree, before uniformly filing out of the hall, no doubt in search of several hits of caffeine.

“That was, um...”

“You were great, Lexa.” (If it means Clarke looking at her ~like that,~ Lexa can't really complain about the blonde's habit of cutting her off). “Really great, you know?”

Lexa is pretty sure she's blushing under the dim glow of the stage-lights, torn between shrugging off and safe-keeping the compliment. _You were no writer, you told me as much, so I filed, and pocketed, and scrapbooked every version of your: “this metaphor sucks.”_

“So were you.”

“We work well together,” Clarke affirms. “I'm probably not supposed to say anything yet, but I'm, like, ninety nine point nine nine nine percent certain that you'll get the part.”

“I hope so,” Lexa says, not expecting to mean it as much as she does.

“Me too.”

To any sane onlooker, the exchange has apparently disintegrated into mere parody, parallel, and blatant repetition, though Clarke's suggestion of, “you should come over some time, to run lines and stuff,” decidedly breaks the pattern.

“I'd like that.” Lexa is amazed at how measured she sounds in the face of such an invitation, even more amazed at the fact she's coloured pink ( _see:_ _I like you in shades of bubblegum fondness, on a gradient sloping straight to peach)_ , whilst standing beside a kind-of-stranger.

“Me too,” Clarke echoes, flashing the merest of half-smiles, that makes the bones of Lexa's shoulders ache // _under the weight of a god in a girl, divinity dusted as make-up on cheeks._

She is totally, utterly, and rather excessively, screwed.

 

“Yeah, you're screwed alright,” Anya snorts, when Lexa relays the weird daydream of the other night to her best friend, and asks if it's possible that two people who've never met before, can have some sort of unspoken connection.

“ _Anya_. I'm serious.” She means it, too. Even Gustus, in all his furry wisdom, has grown tired of her florid enjambment, free verse writ without paper or pen- lest she read it over, and succeed in nothing more than embarrassing herself.

“Hey, babe,” Raven greets as she walks over, ignoring Lexa in favour of making heart eyes at Anya, and sitting a little too close to befit their busy cafeteria setting. “Who’s screwing?”

“Lexa and Clarke.”

“Clarke as in, Clarke Griffin? Octavia's friend?”

“I don't know, maybe? And we're not 'screwing,'” Lexa interjects, in a conversation about (and yet increasingly _without_ ) her.

“But you want to be, right?” Raven has “the look” on her face again, and Lexa shudders, recalling the infamous “plan” last year involving duct tape, water balloons, and poor, unsuspecting Costia.

“I don't even know her.”

Crazy as it may sound, Lexa isn't entirely sure she's telling the truth.

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“Anya, kindly reprimand your girlfriend.” Anya rewards the subject with a pudding cup, and kisses her cheek in a gesture that could be deemed “sweet” if it wasn't so damned obsequious.

Lexa rolls her eyes.

“I'm trying to help you, nerd,” Raven mumbles, her words muffled around a mouthful of toffee-cinnamon. “Octavia is in my History class, I can probably score you Clarke's number or something.”

“She already gave me her number,” Lexa murmurs, to a double act of knowing smirks and mocking giggles. Not that they've suddenly become “texting buddies” or anything, quite the opposite- Clarke sent a row of indecipherable “emojis,” and Lexa talked herself out of replying.

“I thought you-”

“I know her a little,” Lexa concedes.

She likes how that sounds. “A little” may imply the existence of “a lot,” and Lexa is most certainly _not_ opposed, to knowing Clarke Griffin a whole “lot” better.

 

Such an opportunity presents itself around 1pm the next day, as Lexa wrestles with an avalanche of text-books in the hallway.

“Need some help with that?”

She recognises the voice without even turning around, leaves her smile on the top shelf of her locker, and tries to at least _appear_ “casual.”

“Thank you,” Lexa says, not insincerely, when Clarke volunteers to carry “Geometry 101,” and “Psychology: made easy!”

“That's okay, I was looking for you anyway.” She speaks softly, sentences considered, not catching, like vanilla embodied in flesh and bone. Which is hardly the smartest analogy that Lexa has ever come up with, but if they hugged ( _beating heart to crooked home, lines meet at zero_ ) she's confident that Clarke's shampoo would match her (soothing) tone.

“You were?”

“Actually, I was looking for _Viola_ ,” Clarke grins, so pleased with herself that Lexa can't help but mirror her mood, see a stroke of yellow in a sky of otherwise blue.

“I got the part?”

“Of course you did.”

There's that silence between them again. Except, it's occurring to Lexa that silence may not be the right descriptor at all. “Stillness” is more like it- they're impressionist flowers in a watercolour vase, just waiting on an artist to join the dots or erase their shapes, cross their stems or start again.

_If people were not subjects, but paintings, I'd be pointillism (almost, almost, a great beauty from a distance), and she'd be a mural- the greatest argument for a higher cause, yet shrine to all things secular._

“So, I was thinking, we could maybe hang out tonight, and go over the play? My mom makes a really mean chicken pesto.”

Lexa freezes. She'd figured that Clarke's previous offer was non-committal at best, comparable to old friends who run into one another at the mall or on street corners, and vow to “get together again.” At the least, she thought the other girl would wait a while, before turning “sometime” into “today.”

“It's totally fine if you're busy, we could reschedule for another-”

“I'm not. Busy, I mean. I can make it.” Lexa internally winces at her fragmented speech (a mosaic without glue is all sharp edges, and “brokenness” is by no means gallery, _galaxy_ , material), though Clarke doesn't appear to notice.

“I'll text you my address,” she says, in lieu of goodbye, sky-rocketing towards the art room.

Once again, she is fleeting, fleeing where Lexa is rooted, stationary, left alone to monitor her new levels of “screwedness,” and ponder how on earth her search for extra credit, left her grasping at the edges of something ineffable.

_Spoiler alert: she's still pretty (as Raven would say) “freaking screwed.”_

 

 

Clarke is right. Dr Gr- _Abby_ , as she'd insisted Lexa call her whilst visiting her daughter, really does make a “mean” tripartite dinner, whilst sparking small talk about theatre, and reminding Lexa of the lab report due Thursday.

“I'll get right on that,” she promises, as Clarke makes their excuses, and insists that they “discuss the play” from the comfort of her bedroom.

It's nothing like she expected. Then again, Lexa doesn't even know what she was expecting, isn't really sure if it's possible to tell someone's taste in interior décor, merely by stammering and shattering in their (short-lived) presence.

Unframed oil pastels litter the walls, a jarring compliment to the floor-assortment of creased clothes and empty cups. Clarke is winning no awards for order and organisation, though her violet-patterned bedspread makes up for most of the chaos.

Clarke catches her staring. “They're my favourite flower,” she explains, and Lexa just nods, without adding “ditto.”

_From shrinking schoolgirl to the boldest of suitors, this purple-petalled paradox, only heightens our chapstick/t-shirt confusion._

What's most surprising, to Lexa at least, is the plastic green solar system blu-tacked to her ceiling, an assortment of crescent moons and five point stars; sharing the stage in unison. The idea of Clarke lying awake in the dark, feeling anything but infinite under the glow of a million lights, strikes a chord that can't be explained, at least not in words that she's ever heard of.

“Would you like a drink or something?” Her host's question puts an end to Lexa's shameless perusing and endless musing, milky-way thoughts returned to (comparably) solid ground.

“I'm good.” Before they can descend into “the quiet” once again, she quickly tags-on, “how about we start with Act 1?”

“Okay.” Clarke flips open her play, and at once she's Countess Olivia, without the aid of costume or composition.

“What is your poetry? Not text or doctrine, I would hear the maid, not the man.”

Though she's since read through the play a few times, Lexa still can't quite believe that anyone on the school board authorized the overt “gayifying” (another Ravenism) of a classic, least of all that she _herself_ was cast in such a production- art, it seems, truly does imitate life.

“Let me see your face,” she responds, feeling a little ridiculous whilst sitting cross-legged on a futon, in a decidedly _non_ theatrical setting.

“Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face?”

“No.”

“Then I will draw the curtain, and show you the picture.”

At the command of the pages, Lexa mimes removing Clarke's invisible veil, hands burning when thumb collides with chin.

“Excellently done. 'Tis how I am certain, that God did not do all.”

“How?”

Lexa pauses. “Would Viola really say this?” she asks, almost to herself, gesturing to an unbroken paragraph which diverges so far from all realms of “sixteenth century acceptable.”

Clarke laughs. “What, you mean the sapphic soliloquy?”

Lexa's chest twists at the term, nails carving patterns into her palms. Because Clarke is, quite probably, maybe, most likely, straight, because Clarke is straight, and it sounds... strange, that's all, like hearing an old turn of phrase that the world stopped using for a while.

_She spoke free verse in French, and lyrical in Italian, whilst I, simple I, could muster no more than broken English. But this mattered none- for the only thing universal was the taste of her skin on my tongue, and this (so we said) was the language of love._

“Yes. I guess, it seems a little ridiculous to be inciting “all the legions of hell” in the name of “true love,” when they've known each other all of five minutes.”

Lexa pretends she hasn't been blinded, brightened, since that day at the theatre// _chased by clouds of lilac potion, a witchcraft drew me to this moment._

“I don't think so.”

“You don't?” Not that Lexa can presume to have any kind of insight into the philosophy of Clarke Griffin, but she had her pegged (messy room, brilliant actress) as more of a realist.

“No. I think, when you meet someone, time doesn't have to be an issue.” Her eyes don't leave Lexa's, expression coded in earnest. “I'm not saying anything as cliché as love, the stereotypically Hollywood “I would die for you” love, but... familiarity, maybe. A kind of tenderness.”

Their knees are touching, Lexa notes, as she does her best not to pen an ode to the shape of Clarke's nose. “Have you ever felt-”

They're interrupted by a knock at the door, with Abby offering herself as a walking clock. “Since it's getting late, why don't you stay over, Lexa? I'm sure Clarke won't mind breaking out the air mattress.”

“That's fine, really, I can-”

“She'll stay,” Clarke chimes in, smirk playing at the corners of her (otherwise, angelic) grin. Abby smiles at the pair and shuffles off, leaving Lexa's heart-rate still trying to catch up.

“Confident I'm not tired of you yet?” she attempts to joke- as if she could be tired of the girl, she's still so desperate to get to know.

Clarke aims a throw pillow in her direction. “I hope you like weird eighties movies.” With that, she starfishes on her (non air) mattress, and gestures for Lexa to lie beside her.

She should decline. Lexa should leave without looking back, make one last bid to keep from falling off the face of the planet. _(_ _She won't catch you, won't even try, though you protest that her warm breath on your neck might be worth the flight)._

Instead, she crosses the cotton barrier, confirming that, yes, Clarke _does_ smell like vanilla. She's also far more intricate up close- an etch a sketch of freckles and curves, built to drawn, held, written of- not displayed, even proudly, on a shelf.

This is probably another one of those thoughts that veer too close to dangerous, too invasive for their level-up status as friend-strangers. Lexa doesn't usually have this hard of a time with labels, always a fan of checklists and boxes. (Except, apparently, when it comes sleepovers she's too old and too gay for).

“The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink?”

“You choose,” Lexa mumbles, oddly unsurprised when Clarke selects “Sixteen Candles.”

_I could write that she was the ocean and I was not the sand, that I was a mere mortal who died every night, just to hold her in my hands. // She's just a girl too small for her sheets, and I am oh so terrified, to fall for something real._

… _..._

For a long time that night, Lexa stares up at the stars, feeling more than usually insignificant, and wondering what on earth they have in store.

 

She wakes to sunlight streaming through the open window, casting shadows on Clarke's vacant pillow. It's a stark contrast to the vast planes of ceiling-galaxy, and goes some way in returning Lexa's mismatched mood to normalcy.

That is, of course, until Clarke returns with cinnamon waffles and fresh coffee, the very picture of domesticity. Her list of talents, so it seems, is never-ending.

_We're playing house in a cardboard box, she said I like you, I like you, I like you a lot. (I think I like her more)._

“Thank you, Clarke,” Lexa says, a little distracted by the fact that the blonde is wearing nothing more than a t-shirt. She gazes intently at the criss-cross pattern of her waffle, not shocked to learn that it's as wonderful as she who made it.

“Do you want to spend the day together?”

The question can't be written off as a theatre obligation or a chance encounter, a suggestion posed by a concerned mother. This is all Clarke, Clarke asking, _wanting_ to spend time with her.

“Doing what?”

She sips her coffee, considering. “I don't know,” she shrugs, a single ray illuminating the crease where her eyeliner is smudged, a strip of collarbone; exposed. _She was summer in a bottle, and I knew that come winter, she'd spill over, under._

Lexa decides that she doesn't want to know, either. “I'd like that."

“Neat-O,” Clarke remarks, and Lexa re-cycles some lie about her “lame” vocabulary.

What she neglects to mention, however, is the most wholesome of truths- that she'd do anything to reach across the ocean of the bedspread, and kiss her, morning breath and all. _(Join the continents in perfect song)._ Not even like in the movies they watched last night, all bite and fake, Lexa would much prefer the gentle press of upturned lips, a soundtrack of teenage innocence.

(When Clarke leaves the room to shower and clean up, she can't help but feel as though she's done something terribly, terribly _wrong_ ).

 

As it turns out, “I don't know” is a whole lot of mooching and wandering, until Clarke suggests that they hang out on the rooftop of an abandoned apartment building.

“It's totally fine, I used to go up there all the time.” _Wish I could visit you like a country, map every quirk and catalogue every (non existent) flaw-_ _study your favourites, without breaking any laws._

“Oh... okay.”

Clarke practically flies up the dilapidated staircase, vowing that the view from the seventeenth floor is “so worth it.”

Lexa can't help but agree. The garden terrace may well be the seat of the gods, skyscrapers so close she could reach out and touch. _And in an instant, pink gave way to purple, as I looked at the clouds and only wished to be looking at her//_ _knew I'd feel this way, no matter if we travelled the world. She was my atlas, and I was no more than her_ _(passing)_ _storm._

She considers, quite seriously, if it would be possible to play whack-a-mole with the people below, then concludes that they're not people, not really, just shadowy figures. She and Clarke are the only two people left in the stratosphere. (Lexa wonders, if that were the case, would Clarke kiss her then?)

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Clarke traces the cityscape with her fingertip, before proceeding to dig through the bedlam of her back-pack. Like bedroom, like lifestyle, apparently. (Lexa doesn't admit that she finds it endearing).

“Not as beautiful as you,” she half-whispers, in an exaggerated version of her Viola voice.

_She said I love you in yellow roses, but never in ambrosia. We bound the bouquet, and looped our wrists in (im)perfect matrimony- I the bride, and she the attendee._

Clarke laughs, as if mocking the sentiment, and Lexa bites her tongue to keep from repeating it without the mask of her character.

“Do you smoke?”

“Smoke...”

She brandishes the contents of her back-pack, and Lexa makes a small “ah” sound at the back of her throat. What she _intends_ to do is reiterate her status as an honour role student, and remark that she's never seen the appeal in “smoking a plant.”

What comes out is: “I could try it?”

“You don't have to.”

“No, I know. I want to.” Lexa's parents never warned her about _reverse_ peer pressure- though, when it comes to Clarke, aren't all these torments self inflicted?

God, now she really does sound like a Shakespearian creation, destined for bloody knuckles and violent nostalgia, an emblem of doom in Clarke's borrowed denim jacket.

“If you're sure.” Clarke rolls the joint like she's done this before (which, again, shouldn't be surprising, since Lexa is still studying for an imaginary test on the blonde), inhales a haze of milky smoke, defying all rules, of what is and isn't hot. She doesn't even cough.

“Your turn.”

Lexa attempts to copy the motions, only succeeds in holding the thing in her mouth for a few moments, spluttering with no good reason. Clarke laughs just a little this time, and Lexa burns red, not entirely from embarrassment. _She's all_ _stop signs and high voltage_ _, a fusillade of exclamations,_ _and_ _I am hurdling, helplessly,_ _towards a crimson dawn._

“Lexa, would you like me to help you?”

“Okay,” she says, though oblivious as to what that might entail.

“Open your mouth.”

“What?”

“Do you trust me? You know, under the circumstances.”

Lexa assumes that “the circumstances” are the small matter of knowing one another for less than a week, wonders if Clarke, too, finds this whole situation comforting slash weird. _We're a tangle of wires; like stars,_ _always crossed in the wrong places._

She opens her mouth.

Clarke pushes and arranges, until Lexa is lying against the rooftop, concrete cool against the flat of her back. She hovers over her, their bodies held in place by a single breath. The question of “who's,” would be impossible to answer.

_I pray the earth will be kind to us, the two unfortunate lovers, for vows made to the heavens, cannot be translated to the undergrowth// in this life, at least, she was mine and I was her own._

Everything is Clarke- Clarke's hand on her hip, Clarke's hair framing her face. Lexa wonders if it's possible to drown in a person, under the weight of their thoughts and their skin and their swirling, spiralling brain.

She doesn't even notice when Clarke inhales from the joint, _ex_ hales in the space between Lexa's lips. Their mouths brush, but do not meet, the greatest tragedy, in all of history. It's a tease, a ploy, a painting displayed without colour, only lines.

Smoke burns her lungs, though Lexa is fixated on the faint taste of Clarke's gum, an odd cocktail of weed and watermelon. Perhaps recreational drug use, isn't so bad after all, Lexa notes, unsure if she's dying or being born.

“You're so pretty, Lexa.” Clarke sounds distant and far-away, floating up, up, up above their frozen embrace. She herself feels giddy yet boneless, judgement smudging with each of their almost-kisses.

(It's Lexa's turn to giggle at the compliment, for no other reason than nebulous joy).

_I wanted her in the plainest of language, all raw and heat and entanglement. It was the rest of the world, not I, who insisted this whole thing should be complicated._

“How did you find this place?” she semi-slurs, once Clarke (unfortunately) sits up, and they're again lounging side by side- closer, this time.

Clarke drops the remains of the joint into an empty plant-pot. “I used to sit up here for hours, watching the city turn gold. Kind of like I was a god, or something to that effect.”

She's side-steeping the query, but Lexa doesn't interrupt.

“My dad showed me, before he left my mom. Left us.” Their fingers graze, though neither hold on, content to muse on a half-formed metaphor. “Unorthodox parenting, I suppose.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I don't think about it any more.” A lie, of course, one that they're far too spacey to debate. Lexa is torn between laughing and crying, flying or being buried here, specifically here, with Clarke right beside her.

“What about you?”

“Huh?” she mumbles, subject matter already forgotten.

Clarke smiles (fondly?), and expands upon her question. “Where's your 'place?'”

_She was fourth of July fireworks (electric pulse, magnetic pull), and the fifth of July clean up- aching limbs and mid-day sun. This, claimed the movies, was no safe way to build a home._

“I haven't found it yet.”

For one maddening moment, Lexa wonders if they're about to kiss, really kiss, two comets upon the point of collision. She doesn't factor Clarke's (probable, possible) heterosexuality, the thousand and one reasons that her new friend wouldn't be attracted to her. (Once sober, no doubt, she's like to do anything _but_ remember).

Instead, Clarke asks, “So, what are your views on aliens?”

Lexa doesn't pause, not this time.“Real.”

“You answered that pretty quickly.”

“Some things you just know, you know?”

Lexa would like to blame the marijuana for her lack of cohesive and proper English, though really, truly, it's just her default setting in Clarke's presence.

“I know.”

They sit together in comfortable stillness, watching as day fades into dusk. (Lexa hopes they can make it, until the moon comes up).

 

Lexa spends the rest of the weekend with Clarke, and far longer than that.

They run lines and text “lame” emojis, lounge on the field at lunch and knit daisy chains. Lexa memorises her Starbucks order (two shot caramel macchiato), doesn't flinch when Clarke decides to braid her hair or read the fortune of her palms, fingers always lingering a little longer than planned. This is what friends do, right?

Lexa is so busy with Clarke, and the play, and Clarke again, that she doesn't see much of Anya and Raven- a point that they forcefully insist on rectifying.

“Okay, she's definitely not straight.”

That's Anya's sole take on “the rooftop incident,” when Lexa (finally) gets round to re-telling the tale. To be fair, it's still better than Raven's hysterical outbreak at the notion of Lexa dabbling in a (semi) illegal substance.

“Even if that were true-”

“It is.”

“... that doesn't mean she likes me.” _Crushes come in pastels, not monochrome,_ _and I am tired of being contained to the pages of her scrapbook, not the photos._

“I guess I'll have to see for myself.”

Suddenly, Anya and Raven “dropping in on her” during rehearsal, seems _far less_ like a thoughtful gesture- and _more_ like the plot to a bad spy film.

“Please tell me you didn't.”

“We did,” Raven chimes in. “I signed us up to help out with costumes and set.”

Lexa glowers at her friends, all set to denounce their meddling. That is, until Clarke nudges her shoulder to announce her arrival.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Raven coughs.

“This is my, uh, this is Clarke.” The stuttered introduction doesn't do her justice, though Lexa is certain that the way she says Clarke's name ( _a six letter prayer,_ _minimalistic_ _poetry, the last line to a letter; never delivered_ ) serves as explanation enough, and renders her transparent in the process.

“I've heard so much about you,” Anya smiles, and Lexa considers the merits of faking her own death- booking a one way plane ticket to Canada, and never coming back.

“And I you,”- hyperbole on Clarke's part, given that they've been too... _busy_ , to raise subjects outside of their two-person bubble. _I met her, and forgot about the rest of the world- or was it that she became the centre of (my) earth?_

“We should all hang out sometime, get to know Lexa's acting buddy.”

“Sounds good.”

“Great.”

Lexa has never been more animated, nor grateful, for Abby (Dr Griffin?) to call time on their break.

Anya and Raven say their goodbyes and head backstage, whilst Clarke and Lexa take their place _centre_ -stage.

“Act 5 scene 1, Olivia's garden. Once again, do your-”

“... best with the script. We got it, mom.” Clarke casts her a meaningful look, like they're old friends who share inside jokes. Lexa does her best not to blush.

She fails, upon Clarke reaching out to cup her face- as per the script. Lexa steps back, under the command of her own. _We are: instruments, mortals, doomed to replay the same freakshow fairytale- ships in the night, no picture book ending._

“I cannot sacrifice the lamb that I do love- not in the name of savage jealously, nor to spite a raven's heart within a dove. If you would marry him, fair Olivia, take thy fortunes up.”

“But I, most jocund, apt, and willingly- to do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.”

“Is this love indeed?”

“I have known love, only as green and yellow melancholy. No priest would contract our eternal bond, nor could we be confirmed by the mutual joinder of our hands, attested by the holy close of lips, the exchange of rings.”

“Perhaps this love, belongs only to the grave.” Lexa cringes as she reads the line, unable (typical Lit student) to separate herself from the play. Don't these characters, these women, these symbols, deserve better than this? If this is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, “re-imagined,” why must it sound so much like the original?

Or, worse, Romeo and Juliet part ii, with lesbians.

Luckily, Clarke, Abby, and the rest of the “creative team” seem to agree.

“It sounds wooden... problematic... I don't buy it” are _some_ of the qualms she overhears, as well as a whole lot of page turning, sighing, and scoffing in harmony.

“Are you okay?” And then _Clarke's_ hand, not her character's, is brushing her arm, likely concerned that the effects of Lexa's internal rage-rant have left her zoned out and staring at the wall.

“I'm fine.” // _I was wondering, if only death can make a tragedy, what should I call this, us, the way_ _you'd look// in my bed, in my head, next to me, always?_

“Does _anyone_ have any ideas about this scene?” Abby implores, seemingly to the entire theatre. Lexa's notebook burns a hole in her pocket. She doesn't say anything.

“Lexa, don't you-”

“I have to... um, water.” _Eloquent_ _, Woods._

She flees (okay, speed-walks) from Clarke's well meaning attempts, and curses herself for not being more careful. Of course Clarke noticed her perpetual scribbling (or, “the notebook thing,” as Anya has so oft described it)- but that doesn't mean she has any clue about it's contents, doesn't explain why she was about to take a “leap of faith,” and gamble the artistic direction of their senior play.

Then again, nothing about the past few weeks makes any sense, nothing about her own actions, or words, the flower-casket sprouting from the garden of her chest. Maybe it makes sense that Clarke makes no sense, either.

“Lexa?”- case in point, since the last thing that she expected, was for Clarke to waste time following her. She joins Lexa in sitting cross-legged beside the water cooler, as the rest of the cast (and teachers), leave to snap up the cafeteria meal deal.

“Sorry.” 

“Don't be sorry. _I'm_ sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn't.” _You couldn't._

“It's just... you're always writing in that damned notebook. And judging by your acting, the way you speak... it's bound to be worth reading. I _know_ you're good enough to help re-write the play, and I _don't_ know why you're so modest all of the time.”

“It's not all that-”

“Show me.”

Lexa has never shown anyone (other than her cat, though the fact that his verbal communications do not extend beyond the odd “meow,” probably disqualify him from this count) her work before, is reluctant to even read over it herself.

Clarke isn't “anyone,” either. Does that make this better or worse?

She's silent again, overthinking, seeds of doubt planting an entire wildlife park within the confines of her skull.

“You don't have to,” Clarke says, not for the first time in the history of their complex-simple relationship. “I'd really like to see, that's all.” For whatever reason, Lexa can't do anything other than believe her, Clarke's gentle smile making her want to expose a little bit of her soul.

“Okay.” She leafs through her notebook, searching for her least incriminating poem. Dizzy, nauseous, firework-eyelids, she hands the page over to Clarke.

“This is amazing, Lexa,” Clarke murmurs when she's finished reading, mirroring Lexa's stare on the first day they met: unblinking, blinded, waiting for a sign that the solar system has given up and gone home; too afraid of the competition. Lexa gulps. “But it's so...”

“Sad?”

“Yeah.”

She tries to laugh it off. “Rather apt for Shakespeare.” Maybe the play is destined to be a tragedy, and her input would be nought more than fitting, not revolutionary.

Clarke shakes her head. “You only wrote one side of the story. Isn't it possible that the other... _person_ might feel the same way? 'I guess' might imply that the writer is getting ahead, or more likely, _behind_ themselves. Hypothetically, I mean.”

“Hypothetically, right.”

They're going to kiss. This isn't a theory, isn't a hunch, Lexa has never been more sure of anything in her life. Clarke's fingers are curved around the base of her neck, head tilting, lips closing the gap.

_It was moving too soon, happening too fast- a paper mache epilogue, not meant to last// when it comes to her, though, how could I not play the optimist?_

“Lex, I-”

“Clarke?” Lexa doesn't recognise the voice, could almost cry at the interruption, freeze frame of the moment she's wanted for so long.

Clarke recoils as if she's been burnt, revokes her skin, her attention and her touch- all to greet the stranger entering through the wings. He's tall, and plain looking, and perfectly average, and Lexa wonders how long it will take for Clarke to get back to kissing her.

“Finn?” Clarke takes a step back from Lexa, and a step towards him. “I thought you weren't due back from college until next week?”

“I came home early, figured I'd surprise you. I didn't expect you to have _company_.”

Something is wrong, Lexa thinks. Terribly wrong, atmosphere grown too terse and quiet to befit the hallowed glory of their theatre hall. She's proven right, if Clarke's next words are anything to go by.

“Lexa, this is Finn. He's my... my, uh, boyfriend.”


	2. Chapter 2

Finn is going to kill her.

He's out of state for one month, and she's gone and fallen half in love with Lexa Woods, who probably views this whole thing as nothing more than a reciprocated high school crush. Clarke only wishes it was that simple.

_In another life, perhaps I wouldn't be quite so cruel, but in this one you were blind enough, to believe the_ _shuddering_ _ocean was a_ _shallow_ _swimming pool._

“Your... your boyfriend?” Her jaw is doing _that thing_ again, and Clarke is pretty sure she's going to die on the spot.

“My boyfriend,” Clarke parrots, trying to make the term seem more natural coming out of her mouth. It feels wrong, somehow.

Lexa doesn't explode with the fire power of a thousand suns, direct her (well earned) rage at Clarke and storm out of the theatre. They'd been about to kiss, for fuck's sake, all because Clarke has, like, zero self control. Surely she deserves to be exposed for such a fraud?

Lexa is polite, instead, and it hurts so much more.

“Oh. I didn't know you had a...” She turns to Finn. “Hello.”

Finn throws an arm around Clarke's waist, territorial to the last. “Uh, hi. And you are?”

She's _special_ , Clarke wants to say. _Wonderful_ comes to mind, a string of synonyms she's never heard of and yet now finally, finally understands.

“This is Lexa, she's playing Viola in that production I told you about. Twelfth Night.”

Finn doesn't respond, though he studies the subject in question as if trying to fathom the missing piece of a puzzle ( _spoiler alert: it's their_ _mouths_ _slotting in a jigsaw of colours_ ). “That's nice,” he says, eventually. The silence that follows is awkward at best, unbearable at worst.

Clarke tries not to stare at Lexa's lips, looks at Finn's instead. They're chapped, pursed in a disapproving frown.

“I should...” Lexa trails off.

Clarke doesn't want her to go, not if she can't follow, go “some place” like they always do after school.

“I'll see you later,” she promises, doing her utmost to sound casual. Lexa exits through the stage doors, and doesn't look back.

And then it's just Clarke and Finn, Finn and Clarke.

She holds her breath.

….........

 

Of course Clarke has a boyfriend.

Lexa was naive to believe anything else- that Clarke liked her, really liked her, that this was somehow “special”- that the other girl was ever acting out of anything other than boredom. _She kissed me because she was lonely, lied because I made it so easy// all her_ _claims_ _were building blocks; send tumbling._

Lexa thinks about the poem, Clarke's faux-confidence that she could re-write Act 5, create a kinder sort of love.

“Fuck,” she whispers, standing alone in the parking lot. Not that Lexa ever usually swears. That's more of a “Clarke” thing. She's just testing it out, trying not to throw up.

“I'm an idiot.” Only a lone pigeon is around to hear the proclamation, and he (she? They?), just fluffs dirty feathers and flies away. How fitting.

Lexa is, without a doubt, the most “screwed” person ever to exist, now or in any other age, time, place, or universe- and it's all because of college credit, chance encounters, and Clarke Griffin.

(Ironically, she couldn't _be_ a more perfect fit for Shakespeare).

….........

“What was that about?” Finn asks her, as soon as they're alone in the echoey room, space enough for Clarke's stupid heart to leap out of it's cage// _gone to join it's counterpart, escape into the flickering dark._

“What was what about?”

He grips her wrist a little too hard, forcing Clarke to meet his eyes.

“Don't play dumb with me, Clarke. You're too good at that.”

She tries to laugh it off. “Jesus, Finn, we were running lines, that's all. How was the long drive?”

He doesn't let go of her arm. “Clarke, you know why I-”

“I know, I know. I know.” If she affirms enough, maybe he'll take the bait and talk about himself. After all, “The life and times of Finn Collins” is Finn's favourite topic. It works.

“The drive was okay. Exhausting, obviously. And some _moron_ at Starbucks tried to short-change me for a cup of coffee.”

“That sounds-”

“Oh, I ran into Bellamy on the way over here. He's back from UCLA, said he'd talk to Octavia about arranging some group get-together. You're not busy Saturday night, are you?”

Clarke _is_ busy Saturday night. She and Lexa had arranged to go into the city, check out the new art exhibit. Her anger flares at the memory of the discussion, lying on Clarke's bed, fighting over who could name the most impressionist painters. Lexa won, but only because Clarke let her.

She isn't sure who she's most pissed at: Finn for showing up without giving her time to figure this whole thing out, or herself for leading Lexa into a house of cards trap.

_She thinks that we are summer flowers and shared sweaters, I think that we are bitten hands and stolen hours// in her version we are infinite, in my version, I just hold on tighter._

“I'm free.”

Finn kisses her cheek, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Clarke thinks about pulling out her phone to text Lexa, let her know that she won't be able to make it. It's not like she can blow off her long term _boyfriend_ , who just travelled cross-country to see her. (Right?)

She glances at Finn, now rambling about the price of gas (up four cents a gallon!), and abandons the idea.

Clarke can always do it later, when he's not around to watch over her shoulder.

 

“Later” turns out to be a _lot_ later, as Clarke's mom insists on cooking dinner for Finn, after he's already invited himself over for three hours to “watch Netflix for a bit.”

It's an... okay way to spend the evening. Finn intertwines their fingers under the table, enthralling them with stories of college classes and college bars, college dorms and college everything else.

Her mom burns the chicken pesto, and forgets to take their cheescake out of the freezer. Everyone pretends not to notice.

Clarke is too busy thinking about Lexa, about the last time they ate this meal together. Everything was new and exciting and the good kind of terrifying, like being four years old and staring up at the lightening. _She is the calm before the rain, and I am waiting, waiting..._

“Clarke?”

“Huh?”

Finn rolls his eyes. “I _said_ , do you want to watch The 100?”

Clarke hates The 100. “Yeah, sure. As long as it's not the episode with the shoot-out.”

“But that's my favourite.”

He plays it anyway. She doesn't complain.

She also doesn't text Lexa. Doesn't call her, either. She just watches shitty TV with Finn, wonders when his hands on her skin started making her cringe. (Avoids noting that Lexa's never did).

 

Her mom notices a drop in Clarke's spirits, always seems to pick up on it whenever Finn comes to visit. She hasn't yet connected the two occurrences. However, it's only a matter of time, unless there's a new “bacterial breakthrough” that leaves her glued to the science channel.

As _soon_ as Finn goes back to his parents' house, she corners Clarke in the kitchen, all “what's up, honey?” and “did anything happen at school?”

_Yeah. I almost cheated on the boyfriend who treats me like a kid, wants me top-shelf like one of his soccer trophies._

“I, er, I just came down to get some juice.”

“ _Clarke_.”

Why does everyone keep adding so much emphasis to her name all of a sudden? It's only bearable when Lexa does it, the way her lips curl around every syllable- akin to daylight-friendly porn, really.

“Fine.”

Her mind races, searching for something semi relevant, something that promises ten minutes of mother-daughter “bonding,” before she can return (unscathed) to her bedroom.

“I have to tell you something.” Oh, okay, apparently her brain landed on _this_ topic of conversation. Not that her mom won't be cool with it, more like she might be _too_ liberal and reassuring, desperate to fulfil some sort of quota.

“I'm bi.” Clarke pauses, wondering if she's even up to date with modern sexuality labels. After all, the science channel can only provide ~so much~ information.

“As in, I like, am attracted to, girls...also.” Is that even proper English? Regardless, her mom seems to understand, raising from one of their Ikea chairs to (awkwardly) wrap Clarke in her arms.

“Clarke, I'm so happy you felt you could share-”

_Holy shit._

“Mom, this isn't a lifetime movie. It's not a big deal, seriously.”

It's really not. Clarke has had herself figured out for as long as she can remember, even got mock-married to a girl in kindergarten. There were daisies and a cardboard priest. It was sort of sweet.

“Wait, did you break up with Finn? Is that why he left? Are you dating someone else? Is it Lexa? Because, she's such a nice girl, and I wouldn't mind-”

_They could see us in photo frames; blown up, coloured in, destined for art galleries._

(Perhaps her mom _does_ occasionally look up from her beakers).

“No, Finn and I are still dating. How did you... I mean, why would you think that?”

If Clarke isn't mistaken, she spots something akin to disappointment and concern, awash as watercolours upon her mother's face. With the flick of a brush, Clarke could wipe the hopeful yellow away. She almost doesn't want to.

“It's nothing. You seemed... lighter around her, that's all. I like Finn, of course. What do I know?” She smiles (faux wide) and shuffles off, no doubt to tune into another documentary following “marine organisms.”

Clarke remains in the kitchen long after her mom leaves, staring at the ingredients list on her juice carton, limbs a heavy weight.

 

They don't see each other outside of the theatre. Clarke is certain that Lexa is avoiding her, can't say she should be blamed for wanting _out_ of this messy scenario. It's been two days so far, the longest they've ever gone without speaking. _I discredit B.H (before her),_ _prefer to measure my history, through a rosier lens._

She makes the most out of their characters' romantic entanglement, delivers her lines with ten degrees of extra fervour.

“I have said too much unto a heart of gold, and lain too little honour as befits your role.” Unscripted, Clarke accompanies the words with a touch to Lexa's chest, feels the drum skip several beats below her fingers.

“With the same 'havior that our passion bears, goes on my master's grief. I fear he will never leave us be.” She's a good actress, sure, but Clarke detects real venom in Lexa's voice, a coldness in the way (Viola) extracts herself from (Olivia's) attentions.

It's nothing more than Clarke deserves.

“Here, wear this jewel for me.”

“I would have you, not your treasures.” Lexa's gaze lingers on hers, and Clarke attempts to apologise via subliminal messaging. She's 99.9% positive it doesn't work. _Entwined in the mind:_ _noose in disguise as a vine._

“'Tis my picture,” she says softly, wonders what Lexa would _really_ do with a picture of her. Tear it up, in all probability.

They mime the exchange of the object, Lexa getting no closer than she has to. Clarke could laugh at her stubbornness, under very different circumstances.

“I must leave you.”

“Well, come again tomorrow. Fare thee well. A friend like thee may bear my soul to hell.”

Her mom applauds the scene, then makes her excuses to return to biology. This “play thing” is taking a chunk out of the time she'd reserved for looking at frogspawn under a microscope. Or whatever it is that she does in her classroom-lab.

Lexa begins packing up in haste, back-pack zipper caught in her copy of the play.

“Lexa?”

She looks up, and Clarke supposes this is as good a chance as she's going to get. Her palms are sweating, stomach churning, every other textbook cliché that she can think of. There must be some mistake. Clarke Griffin doesn't get “nervous,” not ever, not even around girls as cute as Lexa.

_I thought I had done it all, broken every rule, but she showed me that “firsts” are not limited to empty hands and missing school._

“I was, um, I was wondering if you still wanted to hang out on Saturday night. As a kind of group thing?”

Finn can't be mad, surely, considering it won't just be the two of them? She recalls “the Niylah incident,” and shudders, though he'd promised that if Clarke gave him a second, third, _fourth_ chance “this time” would be different.

“...we're all going out to a restaurant. Octavia is going to be there, I think she's in your math class. She'll probably ask Raven, and Anya, and-”

“Will your _boyfriend_ be joining us?”

Clarke decides to be honest. “Listen, Lexa, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Finn sooner. I should have. I _meant_ to. But we were having so much fun together, what with the play and everything... I didn't want to loose you.” She pauses. “I really like you.”

_This is what those songs mean: the sky bloated purple under the weight of her grin// and every street ran red with her name._

“I don't believe you.”

Lexa looks sad and small, devastatingly beautiful. Clarke isn't supposed to view people like art, not any more. It always leads to disappointment.

“What?”

“I don't believe you,” she says again. “If that were true, you would have broken up with him. Or at least talked to me about...” Lexa gestures between them. “... this.”

“It's complicated.” Clarke isn't throwing around one of those meaningless phrases- it really _is_ complicated. She doesn't even know how to explain it to herself, let alone anyone else. Finn is Finn, and she's (stuck?) with him.

“Actually, Clarke, I think it's very simple.”

“And what do _you_ know about relationships?” It comes out a lot harsher than she intended, and Clarke almost instantly regrets it.

“I'm sorry, Lexa. That was uncalled for.”

“No, you're right. I don't know anything about relationships. Or trying to kiss someone else when you're already in one.”

She goes back to packing, wrestling with an avalanche of textbooks.

“I'm sorry,” Clarke tries again, a broken record. “Sorry” no longer sounds like part of the English language, just two syllables failing to explain the ache Lexa housed between her ribs; now re-mortgaged.

She imagines pinning Lexa against the wall, kissing her till they're both breathless and wordless, no longer able to argue over the existence of a _boy._ Somehow, she doesn't think that would go down all too well.

“Goodbye, Clarke.” This time, Lexa doesn't restrain herself from slamming the theatre door.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

….........

 

“You should go.”

Lexa crinkles her nose, peers at Anya over the top of her sandwich. “What do you mean 'I should go?'”

“You should come out with us on Friday night.”

They're all sitting in the cafeteria again, Lexa no longer spending her free periods (and some of her _none_ free periods) with Clarke. She's probably pre-occupied with Finn, anyway. _I needed her like a hole in the head// that is to say, I missed her with no good cause,_ _wanted her far more than I ought._

“Why would I do that?” The mere thought of watching FinnClarke (Flarke? Clinn?) in their domestic bubble makes her head spin, mind racing with what might, and could, and would never have been.

Raven takes the opportunity to interject, sighing as if Lexa is some kind of moron. Maybe there's some truth to that.

“To make her jealous, you idiot. Play her at her own game.” She talks through a mouthful of fries, and Lexa doesn't have the heart to tell her that it's dangerous to ingest ~that much~ ketchup.

“I'm not _that_ petty.”

Anya opens her mouth to protest, and Lexa cuts her off.

“Besides, I don't have anyone to make her jealous _with_.”

“I can fix that.” Anya swats her girlfriend with a napkin.

“I didn't mean _me._ ” Raven turns to Lexa. When was the last time you spoke to Costia?”

Lexa visibly pales at the memory of last summer, when Raven rather literally locked Lexa and her once-crush in Anya's closet during the “haha how weird wow we're just friends lets pretend to be kissing” version of seven minutes in heaven. It was a l-o-n-g three hours.

Suffice to say, other than a strained “see you later,” they haven't spoken since.

Raven pulls out her phone- grinning like she's solved the answer to: life, the universe, and everything.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting you a date for Saturday night. You're welcome.”

“Raven, _no_ ,” Lexa protests, but (secretly) she wonders if this might not be such a bad idea, after all. Not to use Costia as some sort of “points game,” no- she'd liked her once, couldn't she like her again, convince herself to move on? It's not as though she and Clarke ever dated, not even close, so surely it shouldn't be so hard to let go?

_Something tells me that she will always be the one// forty years old and still checking my rear-view mirror, all for a glimpse of blue-blonde._

“Raven, _yes._ I'll let her know you're picking her up beforehand, minimise some of that awkwardness you're so prone to.”

“I highly doubt that Costia is going to agree to any of this.”

“Tell that to the phone.” Raven brandishes her cell, illuminated with an affirmation message from the girl in question.

This time last year, Lexa would have worn her crush on her sleeve, let the crumpled butterfly in her chest fly free. _That was: “I like your face” innocence// this is “I think I love your mind” dangerous._

She forces a smile.

 

Lexa expects her to be late. Perhaps that's because she's spent the past month making plans with none other than Clarke Griffin, the same Clarke Griffin who has never been on time to anything in her entire existence, would arrive late to her own funeral if it clashed with her schedule.

_When it mattered we were strangers on opposite sides of the same room,_ _drawn, kissed; ended before midnight_ _had a chance to bloom._

Instead, Costia is five minutes _early_ , abruptly ceasing Lexa's stressed out steering wheel drumming, dashboard percussion. She gets into the car, a flurry of skirt and citrus perfume, and Lexa wonders how long she should wait before starting it up and driving off, if indeed she should wait at all.

“Hi, Lexa.”

“Hi. You look... really, um.... you look really nice.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Is it possible to drop dead from sheer discomfort? Lexa figures she should “clear the air” before it chokes them both, weighted under the tension of Raven's ridiculous (yet, in retrospect, mildly humorous) antics.

“About what happened last summer, at Anya's party...” she starts, with no clear direction, not entirely sure that it's a good place to begin the conversation.

Costia's eyes widen, bracelets jingling when she raises her hands to stop Lexa from talking.

“Don't even mention it,” she protests. “I'm just sorry I didn't call you afterwards.” She frowns down at leather interior, either musing or stalling. “I guess I was kind of embarrassed.”

“Oh. No, that's okay. I was too. Embarrassed, I mean.”

Costia smiles a real smile, teeth and all. Lexa does her best, manages a hint of gum. Nether of them say anything else, though it's not _quite_ so awkward any more.

She tries to forget about the last time she was in this car, with Clarke, on the way back from watching some superhero blockbuster at the movies. Lexa was happy, and rightly so, sky crayoned gold as Clarke sang along to the radio.

_I had hoped for sun soaked patio, bright lights that do not blind// little did I know, we belonged to harsher climes._

Lexa almost wished she'd leaned across and kissed her, tasted coconut popcorn and strawberry lip balm. Clarke would have kissed her back, she's sure; a memory to store in her glove compartment over winter. Would it have been worth it, she wonders?

“Uh, Lexa? Are you okay?”

Lexa clears her throat. “Sorry. I was daydreaming.”

She judges that _now_ would be a good time to drive off into the sunset (or off a cliff) of their dinner date, meet with Clarke and contemplate the fact that this is probably a huge, horrible mistake.

Costia is painfully oblivious.

….........

 

Lexa brought a girl. Lexa decided to come tonight, after all, and she brought a girl along. Not just any girl- a pretty girl, a _really_ pretty girl, and they're sitting as close as... well, as close as Lexa and Clarke, before Clarke went and screwed everything up.

In the candlelight, they could be mistaken for lovers. Hell, they're probably on the way there, at a pit stop called: “I could stare into your eyes for hours.” Clarke almost collapses on her way into the self-described “value dollar pizzeria!”- the actions of a girl whose boyfriend is _not_ standing right beside her.

_I hope I am the thorn in her side, the juice carton that separates their star crossed knuckles at breakfast time// call it selfish, this jealousy of mine, but I am the glass that holds her bitter wine._

“You invited _her_?” Finn half-hisses, casting pointed looks at the pair. Clarke is more than relieved when Octavia decides to put in an appearance, alongside her (non scowling) boyfriend, Lincoln.

Her own boyfriend's mood is faux brightened in an instant, no doubt safe-keeping his tantrum to hurl at Clarke later.

“Hey, guys. Have you seen Raven and Anya yet?” Octavia asks, and it's at this point that Clarke notices them- watching Lexa and Costia from behind their menus. Subtle.

“We should all move to one of those eight-seater booths!” Before anyone can disband this ill-informed plan (who the hell decided that tonight was a good idea, anyway? Oh, that's right, it was Clarke, her subconscious likely banking on making out with Lexa in the bathroom, returning to suffer through Finn's hand on her thigh under the table), Octavia is already approaching one of the waiters.

He appears to consent to the re-arrangement, gesturing in the direction of Lexa and Costia. Lexa looks up from her conversation, makes eye contact with Clarke for all of 0.2 seconds, then pretends to read the specials board behind her. It's nice to see they're getting past their difficulties.

Clarke (mentally, of course) downs a shot of tequila, lets Finn pull her towards their group table. _I don't wish we hadn't met, not even now, not even if we're destined to live in polarised houses on the scattered edges of a small town._

She's stuck sitting next to the happy new couple, wedged between Finn and Lexa. _Great_. Lexa is all forced pleasantries, “hello Clarke,” and “this is Costia,” restrained by social courtesy. Clarke considers the merits of running out of the restaurant, seeking safety in her roof-top sanctuary.

She hasn't been back there without Lexa, the weed-virgin who made an almost perfect place wholly superlative.

“We should order one of those huge garlic breads!” Raven suggests, enthusiasm levels matching Octavia's buzz. Anya echoes her sentiments, browsing through the “happy hour” leaflet. In fact, everyone in the group seems to agree- except for one person.

“Clarke and I are sharing the spaghetti carbonara and caesar salad platter,” Finn interjects, without consulting her, or even looking at his own menu. Not that Clarke particularly cares at this point. She just wishes this whole thing was over.

“But Clarke hates salad.” Lexa covers her mouth with her napkin, almost comically, as if she didn't mean to invite herself into the conversation. “I mean, um...”

Finn looks like he's about to explode, supernova to a black hole. “Clarke loves salad,” he bites back, a four year old in a playground fight. (He's wrong, of course).

“I don't mind,” Clarke says quickly, desperate to defuse the situation.

Lexa stares at them for a long time, Clarke and Finn; the forever couple. Their paint is peeling, cracks surfacing, and Finn (math-major genius) doesn't even have the grace to squirm beneath her searching gaze.

Clarke almost finds herself _liking_ Costia, when she (knowingly? unknowingly?) eases the trio's tension.

“So, Clarke, which colleges are you applying to?”

Finn takes it upon himself to reply _for_ her. “She's studying Biology in Miami.”

Lexa doesn't say anything this time. She could, though. Clarke's face is blank as she listens to Finn ramble about how they'll be “less than an hour away from each other!”- mind running through every conversation she and Lexa have had about the future, about Clarke potentially applying to drama school.

_I could be on top of her, my body a cover (from him, from them, from everything), and close still wouldn't be close enough// till, in gems, she's bound eternally mine- like the way the sand belongs only to the tide._

“That's if I get the grades I need to get in. Obviously, I have to keep my options open.” Or, maybe she just isn't so hyped about the idea of Finn “checking up on her” very weekend, an extension from high school to adulthood.

“You know, The New School is supposed to be a really good college,” Costia says, all smiles, the helpful girlfriend that Lexa oh so clearly deserves. Clarke can't even bring herself to hate her.

“That's a liberal _arts_ college,” Finn spits, taking a sizeable bite from one of the complimentary bread rolls.

“Isn't Clarke an actress? Lexa was telling me they're in a play together.”

“That doesn't mean she's going to study a _non-academic_ major.”

The intra-group dialogue soon falls flat, too late to join their counterparts' heated debate over season four of “Orange is the New Black.” Not for the first time, Clarke is embarrassed by Finn, frustrated with him, herself, their stupid relationship.

“What do you mean season three was 'the worst?' How could you even-”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Clarke mumbles, trying her best to walk at a (semi normal) speed away from the scene. Luckily, Finn can't find any excuse to start an argument with her bladder. Instead, he turns his attentions to critiquing the condiments brought over by their waiter.

Jesus _Christ._

 

Lexa follows her.

Clarke almost pokes herself in the eye with her mascara wand, a string of curse words echoing around the (almost) empty room.

“Clarke?”

“Lexa, if you're pissed at me for not correcting Finn about my college plans, I get it, okay. But I really can't deal with you yelling at me right-”

She hugs her. The gesture catches Clarke completely off-guard, back colliding with the handle of a silver tap. Lexa's arms are wound around her waist, both hearts beating erratically in open cages. It's dangerous somehow, like cheating and betrayal, infinitely more intimate than every almost kiss that broke the rules.

They hold on for what feels like forever (a few seconds?), until reaching the conclusion that the embrace is “getting weird.”

_We weren't destined, weren't even a good fit, I just wanted a non textbook confluence with my fingers resting on her hip. (What a lie, a bad one at that, I loved her so much, got a sixth sense that she loved me back)._

“Tell me.”

Lexa doesn't have to expand on her question, Clarke knows that she's asking about the elephant in the restroom.

“I can't. You don't get it, Finn isn't usually like this.” (A lie). “He's just....”

“He's the worst.”

Clarke should defend her boyfriend, act the part of the dutiful partner. She doesn't.

“Clarke, the way he treats you-”

“Is none of your business.”

Lexa isn't mad, not like she was in the theatre. She had banked on her storming out in a flurry of amateur dramatics, leaving Clarke to play the injured party. Now _she's_ going to have to do the storming.

“You deserve better,” Lexa murmurs, and Clarke could cry at how damned _gentle_ and _soft_ she sounds, nervously toying with the hem of her shirt. The term “fondness” comes to mind, but Clarke knows, _fears_ , that this is so much more than mere camellia (you're adorable). “Like Olivia and Viola deserved better.”

“That's a play, Lexa.”

_She deserved the solar system- Mars and Saturn turned to pocket-sized thimbles. The best I could do, a model of flesh and bone, was to teach her the names of constellations._

“I know, but-”

“What the hell is taking you so long?”

They spring apart upon Raven's arrival, retreating to opposite ends of the tiny bathroom. Clarke picks up her purse from the sink ledge, prepares to re-enter a dinner date cooked up by Satan himself.

“I can't talk about this right now,” she tells Lexa, in lieu of explanation, not willing to reveal any more in front of Raven, now listening in earnest.

“Clarke, can we...”

She leaves in perfect parallel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really enjoying writing this so far, I have the plot all planned out now and the next chapter is lie half done. Any feedback would be really appreciated, I hope Clarke's pov was in character-ish.


	3. Chapter 3

Lexa is in love with Clarke Griffin.

There's no other explanation, not after _she_ was the one to initiate their hug, the same girl who hides her hands in her pockets, toothy dungeon protecting all of her confessions. No longer can she label her brain with a sticker reading “strong feelings,” write stuttered poetry that shies away from red carnations.

… _shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Or, better yet, shall I compare thee// to the rough winds that do shake the darling buds of may// and let it be said that the four seasons, in all their glory// cannot match your wrathful grace. Yew and Lily, all are mortal// but I should sooner look upon your face// in that soft eye, even God would know faith._

She's in over her head with this, with Clarke and Finn's “relationship.” Sure, Lexa has watched documentaries and seen posters, all clenched fists and loud voices, but no phrase in the English language can describe the way Clarke crumbles and folds beneath Finn's overbearing presence, acidic retorts as good as forgotten.

Surely Octavia, _Abby_ should have noticed that something was off? Then again, perhaps Lexa was desperately searching for something wrong, for the “high school sweethearts” fairytale to fall apart. Not that she wanted _this_ to happen- she'd sooner see Clarke married with three dogs and a farmhouse, than sapped of her strength by a boy who can't even hold her heart right.

“Lexa?”

She's done it again, blanked out behind the wheel, hardly the safest of travelling companions.

“Sorry, I've been doing that a lot lately. Too often.”

Costia doesn't lecture Lexa on road safety, merely smiles like her “head in the clouds” philosophy is somehow funny. (It really isn't).

“I had fun tonight,” Lexa lies, cheeks heating at the thought of having to reject Costia, become the kind of girl who ditches her dates at their doorway. Not that Lexa gets a lot of dates, but _still_. It’s unprincipled.

“No you didn't.”

“What?”

Costia reaches over and kisses her, lips warm and sweet from the cinnamon roll she just ate in the restaurant. It's not fireworks, more like “string of Christmas lights,” though Lexa's mouth is too agape to properly respond.

She pulls away almost as quickly as she leaned in, leaving Lexa with nought more than swirling thoughts and smudged lipstick.

“What was that for?”

“I was saving you from the whole 'let's be friends!' spiel. We both know you're into Clarke.”

Great. Lexa might as well carry a sign declaring her intentions, wear all black to symbolise the death of her privacy. Or, perhaps Shakespeare was a satirist, and teenagers in love are far too obvious.

“Costia, I-”

“It's okay. I think we had our moment in the (proverbial) closet. And, not to get all 'angsty coming of age movie,' but I can tell she likes you, too.”

There's a pause, one where they both stare at the stray sunglasses on Lexa's dashboard. _Clarke's._ If the gesture is territorial, it's as vanilla as her body lotion. Similarly, in the case of sheer forgetfulness, Lexa can't help but find it hopelessly endearing.

“Plus, her boyfriend....”

“He's the worst,” Lexa parrots, unsure whether her choice of words is effective enough to convey Finn's utter _douchery._ In the spirit of Twelfth Night, maybe “scurvy fellow,” or “sheep-biter” (currently undefined, still effective) would be more appropriate.

“She'll break up with him,” Costia claims, a prophet _without_ a crystal ball. “In the mean-time, you can always talk to me about it. _Rant_ about it. Whichever you prefer.”

“Won't that be weird?"

“Not if we're friends.”

“Friends?”

“Friends.”

Friends it is.

 

Clarke shows up at her house.

Lexa knew she wouldn't let their last encounter serve as a loose thread, and knows Clarke well enough to guess that she wouldn't think twice about calling after twelve.

_You are a window to the sun// stained glass, four cornered; shrine to none// I was always afraid of the dark// with you, by god, the evening is positively// purple._

Lexa is lucky her parents are currently away on their “second honeymoon,” since Clarke takes the liberty of knocking on her front door, loud enough to wake all of the neighbours, and their surrounding estate.

“Let's go for a drive,” she says, without pause or preamble, truthfully looking tired and bedraggled. Lexa aches a little. “Finn's asleep, he stopped texting me a half hour ago.”

Lexa pretends like that's a “normal” comment to make, like everyone's social life freeze-frames the minute their significant other comes to visit.

“Shouldn't we discuss...”

“I just need to clear my head first. I don't know.” She wrings her hands around an invisible neck, potentially her boyfriend's. “Get away somewhere?”

“Okay.”

They get in Lexa's car, and head in the direction of “somewhere.”

….........

 

It's the roof.

It's always the roof, especially when Clarke has been at the mysterious green stuff in her mom's (untouched) liquor cabinet, currently on a mild buzz that does little to blur the edges of her consciousness. Or, “false consciousness” if pertaining to Marxism, the literary criticism that Lexa (in that hot-nerdy way of hers) doesn't stop talking about.

“You want some?” She offers her flask: silver, and scarred with colourful stencils of the planets.

To her surprise, Lexa gulps down the slime-esque crap in a single swift motion, tries and fails to hide her grimace. Clarke had figured the weed was a “one time thing,” though apparently her own corruptive influence stretches farther than you might think.

“Wow.”

Lexa smiles at her, fake yet faithful. Clarke has never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in her entire life, and her solution is to drink until she feels like throwing up. _Better to succumb to a comedy of errors, than admit we're entangled in a twenty first century tragedy._

They don't say anything for a while. It's stupid, really. This was the reason that Clarke came to see her at “it's-too-late” o'clock, telling herself that Lexa wants, needs, _deserves_ an explanation. Not that Clarke necessarily has one. She likes, loves, _craves_ the girl (now looking similarly green and sickly) beside her, but can't leave Finn for reasons only summarised in passive aggression and question marks.

He has some kind of hold over her, and it's wholly fucking terrifying that she's unable to figure out how or why, hates herself for being weak in the face of something as mundane as a _relationship_ \- one that only started because they were both drunk slash bored.

“I'm confused,” Clarke mutters aloud; thanks to the alcohol, her tongue is too big for her mouth. “How do I explain... the stuff?” (Okay, maybe her mom's ancient stash is stronger than it looks).

Lexa fumbles around in the pocket of her jacket, pulls out two neatly printed copies of the Twelfth Night script.

She hands one to Clarke, lets their fingers brush far longer than they should. It's weirdly grounding, tethering her to Lexa's version of earth.

“Run lines with me.”

“What? Lexa, I really don't see how this is going to help anything.”

“Do you trust me? You know, under the circumstances.”

Clarke glows, warm and proud, amazed that she's able to remember anything from that day, let alone quote it word for word.

“I trust you, nerd.” she promises, adding lightness to the very real sentiment.

“I trust you, too.”

_This was the stuff of myths- beautiful people, sailing the galaxies for but a glimpse// of their beloved//or flying too close// and going, willingly, towards eternal torment._

From glancing over the pages, Clarke can see that Lexa has re-written the first section of Act 5, clearly having taken their previous conversations to heart.

“Hast thou forgot yourself? Or dost thou forget me? Gracious Olivia, why goes thou with him?”

She was always a convincing actress, though Lexa reads with confidence now: eyelashes fluttering, stance perfected, playing a character braver than her times.

“'Tis his savage jealousy, sweet Viola. He would kill what he loves, claims to love, crown me in his perverse spite. If violence is the card, he plays it with delight.”

Clarke muses on Lexa's poetry, stars flocking from lungs to paper. She almost forgets she's reading what appears to be a damning report of her boyfriend, finds herself blurring the lines of sham pain and real talk.

“He is a fiend; monster, then?”

“Perhaps I am 'uncivil lady,' still so constant in my cruelty.”

“Orsino does beguile you.”

Lexa-Viola (has she removed her mask?) steps closer, replays their first meeting in the theatre. She takes Clarke's hand in her own, presses it against her breast. An action typical of the genre, no doubt, one that leaves Clarke unable to catch her breath.

She mis-remembers a Shakespeare sonnet, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of Lexa's chest. _Be wise as thou art beautiful// know the madness of our love/// in this ill resting world// grown so bad._

“What wilt thou be, when time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case? Wilt thou be his mistress, and his fancy's Queen? What of me?”

Abruptly, the script cuts off, Lexa's question clouding their rooftop spot. Clarke's hand remains in place, paper wings against beaten flesh.

“He _is_ jealous. And not the cute kind. The obsessive kind,” she chokes out, unable to clarify which “he” she's referring to. Lexa stays silent, waiting for her to continue.

Clarke (finally) moves her fingertips: from neck, to collarbone, above the wiring of Lexa's bra; teasing a bow. When the other girl shivers beneath her touch, it sends Clarke on a big enough power trip to carry on.

“I tried to break up with him, but he twists my words, makes me second guess what I'm trying to say. I always stay. I suppose it's easier.”

Abs: defined beneath the fabric of Lexa's tiny t-shirt. Her breath smells like apple alcohol.

“And I didn't tell you why I come up here so often, why I like it so much. It's because he doesn't know about it. Because he can't check up on me.”

They won't kiss, they can't. That doesn't stop them from leaning in, playing pretend. Clarke counts the flecks in green irises, makes it to ten.

“I don't love him.”

_There._ She said it out loud. The sky doesn't come crashing down.

“In fact, I-”

“Don't.” Lexa cuts her off. “Not until we can figure this out. Until you break up with him.”

It's bleeding crimson above them, a sliver of five am sunshine. They slouch back against the fire escape, two dots in an impressionist painting.

“I need some time,” Clarke says, suddenly boneless and wiped out. She's never _revealed_ this much to anyone before, especially when it comes to her “situation” with Finn. Lexa is special, though. Vulnerability doesn't seem all that bad.

“I could help you talk to him?”

“No, he'll just accuse me of cheating. Which is, like, half true. It's already messy enough.”

Lexa rests her head, cautiously, on her shoulder. It's nice.

“I... you too,” she mumbles.

Clarke doesn't have to ask her what she means by that.

 

Her mom is already up when she gets home. Clarke spots her through the kitchen window, making eggs over the stove.

She panics for 0.537 of a second, then begins fabricating some story about taking an “early morning walk.”

“Aren't those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?”

_Crap._ “Yeah. I, uh, guess I need to do some laundry. I'll go do that now.”

“Okay. Oh, also, Finn dropped by around eight-ish.” Clarke's stomach flips, mirroring the eggs in her mom's pan. “He brought muffins, isn't that nice?”

More like, “he brought a chocolate chip excuse to check up on me.” Of course, Clarke doesn't correct her out loud.

“Anyway, I said he could wait in your room. I assumed you decided to stay over at Lexa's last night.”

“You told him that?”

She makes a sound of affirmation, now focused on brewing coffee and buttering toast.

“I should let him know I'm back.” He's going to kill her, Clarke thinks, at the least play guilt trip mind-games while her mom eats omelette downstairs.

“Clarke?”

“Yes?” she says, probably a little too eagerly, hoping there's _something_ that can postpone Finn's version of whisper-yelling; white knuckle anger reverberating from thin wall to thin wall.

“Leave your door open.”

If Clarke had half the chance, she'd spark their conversation right in front of her, let Finn practice his faux manners and plastic pleasantries. He'd squirm beneath “Mrs Griffin's” praise of Lexa, eke out his own gritted teeth compliments.

“Trust me, you really don't need to worry about that.”

She has _no_ idea.

 

He's gazing up at the stars on her bedroom ceiling, glowing sad and pale without the veil of night time. _Thou art dispos'd// to place my merit in the eye of scorn// cloistered though we are// betwixt day and dark._

“Where were you last night?” It's jarring, the way he motions for Clarke to sit on her own bed, stretching and sighing like it belongs to them both.

“I was here. In my room. In my bed. I only left to get some air.”

“No, you were with _her_.” Clarke flinches at the absence of “her” name, decides it's a crime to hear Lexa spoken of so vehemently.

“Then why ask, Finn?”

“Because it's our fucking anniversary, _Clarke_. And you were too busy cheating on me to even remember.”

Shit. She should start keeping a date-diary, or something.

“I didn't cheat on you.” Even as the words are coming out of her mouth, Clarke isn't sure that they're actually true.

_Is “cheating” merely empty gestures, crumpled clothes on dirty floors, a stranger's hands spawned of alcohol? Could it be wires crossed, promises made; emotional?_

“I don't want you seeing her any more.”

This is it, she supposes: either break up, or _be_ broken. Clarke pictures the moment that she'll ask Lexa to be her girlfriend, kiss her without venturing into a moral grey area. It emboldens her enough to continue.

“That's not for you to decide. You can't just... tell me what to do.”

“You're my girlfriend,” he says, like that somehow explains everything.

“Not any more,” Clarke whispers, almost willing Finn to miss-hear her, sallow complexion matching that of a Shakesperian creation. He does, or at least pretends to, inches closer to her blanket-fort safe zone.

“I love you.”

She doesn't respond.

“I love you,” he repeats, kissing the junction between shoulder and collarbone. She shudders.

“Finn, don't-” He kisses her one, two, three times, as Clarke does her best not to recoil. She doesn't feel all that powerful, not any more- closer to Olivia: tethered to a false altar, of the one she cannot love.

“I bought you a present. _I_ didn't forget our anniversary.”

It's a locket, engraved in gold, containing a long ago picture of them both. They can't have been any older than ten years old, two kids playing house and jumping rope. Ironically, back before they were actually dating, Finn was a far likelier qualifier for “boyfriend material.”

“It's pretty,” she lies; mechanically, passively.

Clarke's heart is hammering too hard for a girl who should be relaxing in her bedroom. She's tired, exhausted, really, figures she can end things with Finn when her vision isn't swimming.

“I knew you'd like it. You can wear it on our date tonight. I booked us a table for eight o'clock.”

“Finn, I don't want to-”

He fastens the locket around her neck, pulls the chain tighter than he ought. She. Can't. Breathe. Pin-prick bruises spark from the rough edges of his fingertips, imprinting a Finn-sized mark. They could be half-moon bites, willingly inflicted, if he were kinder and warmer and _Lexa._

When Finn steps back to inspect his work, Clarke has but one cohesive thought:

_The locket feels an awful lot like a leash._

….........

 

Time doesn't really exist.

Lexa knows this, which doesn't explain why she's meticulously recording how long it's been since she's seen Clarke outside of the theatre, since her not-girlfriend promised to break up with her current boyfriend, whilst drunk on off-cider and seventeen storeys.

(Three days, four hours, and twenty six minutes).

Doesn't she have cause for concern? Finn is cold and mean and manipulative, and Clarke is too good to waste another second (literally) on him. _For the thorn, as the rose// may share the same fate as any flower// being once displayed, doth fall that very hour._

It's not that Lexa is worried Clarke no longer _wants_ to leave him, more like she's concerned that he's holding her as a metaphorical prisoner, locked away in his ivy-league tower.

Raven coughs, loudly- so loud that she startles several eighth graders carrying paint, watery orange flooding the stage.

“Earth to Juliet.”

Costia chimes in, the newest addition to the “let's taunt Lexa about her love life” group. “Or maybe she'd be the female Romeo.”

Lexa considers the plot of the play: self-sacrificing idiots, both fallen for the trope of “love at first sight.” Romeo sidelined to wait on his wife, Juliet almost married off, “saved” only by the point of a knife. Unsurprisingly, the script doesn't make for a laugh a minute.

“I'd be Romeo,” she affirms, resting her head in her hands. When Anya and Raven lapse into “couple mode,” Costia nudges Lexa to gain her attention.

“Hey,” she says, softly, as if speaking to a child. “What's up with you and Clarke?”

“There is no me and Clarke. Not until she ends things with Finn.” Lexa won't be the catalyst for betrayal, no matter how unsavoury the other party is. And, more importantly, she can't make it easier for Clarke to stay with him, content in her game of pain/passion checkers; forever a win-looser.

“She told you she'd do that? Break up with him?”

Lexa nods. “But I haven't seen her since then, minus a few scenes with virtually no Olivia slash Viola interaction. She always runs off before I can catch her back-stage.”

“Yikes. Maybe you should-”

Lexa doesn't hear the rest of Costia's suggestion, as the quartet are interrupted by the subject of their conversation.

“Clarke?”

She seems determined to hurry straight past them, doesn't even attempt to make eye contact with Lexa. _We are fools of circumstance// our compass_ _needle_ _standing still// 'tis not my fault// I would have died for thee// I did._

“Clarke, can I talk to you about... _something_?” She tries to be delicate, not willing to clue in Raven and Anya. Though, the chances of either of them noticing anything besides _each other_ are rather remote. “Please.”

Clarke frowns at Costia, motions for Lexa to follow her behind the curtain. She goes, willingly, towards the ghost of the girl who stood boldly on _their_ roof.

“Ghost” is the apt term, too, all smudged eye-liner and old clothes. She's beautiful as ever- just no longer tangible, like if Lexa touched her she'd fade away. She tries it, anyway. Clarke allows her, hand to cheek, before snapping out of their Midsummer Night's Dream.

“Clarke, what's wrong? You're scaring me.”

She elects to ignore Lexa's concerns, twisting the question to fit her own intentions. “I thought you said you weren't dating Costia.”

“What? I'm not.”

“Are you sure? You looked pretty fucking close back there.”

Lexa flinches at the ferocity of her diatribe, wants nothing more than to hold Clarke (soothingly) in her arms, till the storm is done washing over and over (and over) her bones. _True// as I am, all lovers may not be// but we// more than married are//_ _bound in wild violets, not platinum._

“What about you and Finn? Did you break up with him yet?” She already knows the answer, if Clarke's dark circles are anything to go by.

“I can't.” Clarke practically recedes into the wall, anger turned to empty absence.

Lexa no longer judges Shakespeare's pre-pubescent lovers; as she, herself, feels almost sick on deadly poison. All that's missing is the open casket.

“Did he hurt you? Physically? Emotionally? Clarke, you have to talk to someone about this. Let me help you.” She's rambling, brain searching for a combination of “perfect” words. In sixth grade, Lexa was top of her debate team, though this is a little different than “potential strategies for wildlife conservation.”

“No.”

“I don't believe-”

It's then that Lexa notes the golder than gold locket around Clarke's neck, illuminated by a flood of light. Octavia is probably practising her new job as stage manager, and having a little _too_ much fun with the operating system.

“Did _he_ buy you that?”

“Jesus, Lexa. What difference does it make?”

“It makes a difference because-”

“I was drunk.”

Lexa waits for her to clarify, to make sense of this grey cloud; drawn over them. She'd prefer a duvet, a blanket, perhaps, a tarpaulin of starry night.

“When I promised all of that stuff. I don't think I can break up with him, Lex. I really, I don't...” she cuts herself off. Gives up, is more accurate.

Lexa plays the only move she has left. She kisses Clarke long and hard, iconic to the silver screen, iconic to dire circumstances. Clarke kisses back with even more desperation, and for a moment they're both wanted and girlfriends and _normal._ Fingertips bite hips, teeth bite lips. It takes Lexa more than three minutes to notice the bruises.

_As time steals life, it may gift it again// scarred skin, now pink// winter turned to spring._

Or, the single bruise, purpling, a tiny continent on Clarke's neck. She cries when Lexa kisses it. Lexa could match her, tear for tear, if she wasn't out for blood. Finn's blood, specifically. She has to be the brave one this time, scaling rooftops and taking centre-stage, speaking first; speaking _loud_.

“It's not a play, Clarke.” She kisses her: mouth, neck, freckled shoulder. “It's you, it's us.” A pause. “And we deserve better.”

For once, Clarke doesn't protest, insist she can carry the weight of the world herself. Eighteen years old, and she's only now learning that the burden isn't hers to bear and bear alone. Lexa loves her more, assuming that's even possible. “You're right,” she murmurs. “We do.”

Lexa reaches for her hand. “We also have to talk to your mom about this."

Clarke doesn't let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this was my favourite chapter to write (so far), I really hope it was okay


	4. Chapter 4

….........

It ends in her mom's kitchen, of all places.

They sit around the table, the four of them, glaring at untouched tea and cake. Clarke has never been to a wake, but she's pretty damn sure it would look something like this.

Lexa intertwines their fingers _on top of_ the wooden surface, traces the faint shape of a heart over Clarke's wrist, looping the lines with her trademark _gentleness._ She's such a sap. _If this be heresy// consider me beguiled// contracted as we are//_ _thee to the_ _heavens_ _, and I to your_ _temple._

Finn doesn't dare to protest, not with her mom frowning at him as if he were a bacterial parasite, a bug to be crushed beneath the flat of her beaker.

Lexa told her the whole story, all of it, while Clarke saw red, felt blue, and drank too much apple juice. And now they're here, in the middle of their own private “Jerry Springer” showing. It's almost laughable, except for the part when Clarke ugly-cried for the first time since she was a kid, and texted Finn with shaking hands: “I need to talk to you.”

He certainly wasn't expecting the all-female version of the Spanish inquisition, definitely considered bolting for the door until Lexa (in a voice that Clarke didn't know she was capable of) ordered him to “sit.”

“Clarke, why don't you tell Finn how you feel?” In another life, her mom really could have been a TV style therapist.

“I, um...”

Lexa brushes a section of Clarke's hair, smooths the tangle of blonde curls. She pictures daisies, hundreds of them, growing in symphony, on the window-sill of a house shrouded in domesticity. Hands fix hair, a blurry couple eat breakfast on their patio. It's painfully hopeful.

“I _feel_ pissed. Sad. Embarrassed. Like I want to break up with him.” She turns to Finn. “Break up with _you_.”

This time, he can't kiss her against her will, repeat “I love you” like it somehow makes up for everything. Her neck throbs, bruise indignant of it's origin.

“Clarke, I'm sorry if you think I hurt you. Just give me another chance, it won't happen again. I swear I'll change, I-”

“She isn't done talking,” her mom and Lexa declare, in freakishly perfect unison. Clarke grows braver, lets her (angst-fuelled) journal spill over.

“You _did_ hurt me, Finn. In more ways than one. You _manipulated_ me, and never gave me a chance to tell the truth.”

“What truth?”

She takes a deep breath, prepares to exhale the last year in fractured sentences.

“I don't love you. I don't like you. I don't want to go to Miami, or study Biology. I don't eat salad.” She takes the scrap metal from her pocket, throws it unceremoniously onto the table. “And I _hate_ this fucking locket.”

For once, Clarke's mom doesn't reprimand her for swearing. She smiles, wanly, a yellow crayon on the verge of breaking.

Finn looks from Clarke, to Lexa, and back again, lets his gaze drift to their still-locked fingertips. “Okay. I... yeah, okay.” _We were spider-leg fragility, grateful for the crush, snap, fade to black;_ _hoping for a kinder sort of reincarnation._

He seems (moderately) guilty. Or maybe his face is just frozen on “trademark shifty.” It's hard to tell.

“You know I have to talk to your parents about this.”

Finn's eyes practically pop out of his skull.

“Mom, don't you think that's a little over the top?” Clarke protests, hardly up for dragging out this... _situation_ any longer.

Lexa chimes in, with a sort of coldness that (again) Clarke didn't know she possessed. “It barely goes far enough.”

“ _Lexa."_

“Your neck, Clarke. He...” She gestures at the empty air, arms falling, dejectedly, into her lap.

Clarke knows this has to be hard for her, too- wishes she could calm and touch and exhale between her lips, replay one of their earliest encounters. _'Tis lust in name, till in action// why must such expression be base// I say_ _our desire_ _is wholesome._

“The Collins' are my friends, honey. They'll want to know what's going on. It's a lot more serious than you appear to have been treating it.”

“But-”

“It's fine,” Finn mutters. “I guess I deserve that.”

“You guess?” Lexa spits, and now it's Clarke's turn to trace patterns into _her_ palm. She outlines the five points of a star.

“Lexa, chill.”

“Sorry.”

Her mom coughs. “It's getting late, Finn. You should probably go. I'll catch up with your parents tomorrow.”

He knocks over several cups in his haste to flee, bounding like a “deer caught in the headlights” towards his sanctuary. As Lexa would say (or, rather, _write_ ): a Shakesperian coward indeed.

And then it's the three of them, too tired to comment on the finer details of Finn's exit and sort-of-apology. The ensuing silence is neither awkward nor comforting.

“Can Lexa stay over tonight?” Clarke asks, unwilling to part from the girl beside her, forgo a moon to sun transition of soft whispers and softer kisses, heartbeat harmony beneath cotton linens.

“I don't know about that. Aren't you two...” her mom trails off, points towards their distinct _lack_ of personal space.

Clarke pouts, makes some bullshit soap-opera style comment about “not being able to get through the night.” To her surprise, it actually works. To her _further_ surprise, it may be partly true.

“Fine. But no... _you know_. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Dr Gr, _Abby_ ,” Lexa attempts, blushing as her tongue struggles to define the nuances of their relationship.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Clarke actually laughs, enamoured by her maybe probably soon to be girlfriend. _In whatever chapters we have left, I will love you, I will love you, I will love you the best._

“Let's go.” She tugs on Lexa's sleeve, leads her towards their imaginary shared bedroom, like they're a thirty-something married couple, returned from their fourth honeymoon.

To be fair, they each have weary enough bones to befit a ruby anniversary, collapsing (in a decidedly _non_ erotic way) on top of each other. Limbs tangle in a messy collage, warm and semi clothed, and safe from the outside world.

“Sweet dreams, Clarke.” She really is _too_ precious.

“You too, Lex.”

That night, neither lie awake and stare at the plastic orbs on Clarke's ceiling- choosing instead to chase one another behind their eyelids, awaken in a golden daydream.

It's almost perfect. Almost.

 

….........

Unlike the last time she stayed over, Lexa wakes before Clarke.

She watches her sleep; mouth parted, eyelashes fluttering, a vast expanse of kissable skin. Lexa resists the urge to pull her into the land of the living. _How long wilt thou draw breath// a mortal body// to hold and be held?// our love is not but wrinkle deep// evanishing amid time and tide// it shal_ _l_ _endure// even if I am//_ _the last fool_ _to die._

Is she dreaming about Finn? Having a nightmare that she's still with him? Her bruise appears practically black in the pallid dawn, a symbol of Clarke's strength and Finn's weakness, of: “the wearer deserves a kinder sort of love.” Lexa hopes, thinks, _knows_ she can deliver on such a decree.

Inspired, she searches (quietly) for her Twelfth Night script, begins reading and re-drafting in earnest.

~~…~~ _ ~~You would have been contracted to a maid; nor are you, therein, by my life, deceived. You are betrothed to both a maid and man.~~ _

“ _Might I now remove the mask, and pretence too; let this court hear the nature of our contract. To a man I was betrothed, and to a maid I owe my love.”_

_[Viola again moves closer, this time bridging any and all barriers.]_

Apparently, though, Lexa isn't quiet enough.

“What're you doing?” Clarke stirs beneath her sheets, a renaissance painting with an attractive sleepy voice. She'd make the Sistine Chapel look like a four year old's doodle.

“I'm just writing, sorry I woke you.”

“That's okay. Everything's all... _goldish_.”

Lexa doesn't see it, even with the blinds open. She'd go with “washed out yellow.” Still, how could anyone disagree with the girl, now ghosting fingertips across her torso?

“Beautiful.” Clarke breathes the word onto (into?) Lexa's ribs, a xylophone of bone-ridges. It curls around vacant lungs, exhale bursting forth in molten gold. She sees it now. Call it “the Griffin effect,” but somehow the other girl never fails to writ the world in brighter crayons.

They don't talk for a while, drunk on hazy half kisses, blushes rising on cheeks turned toward the sun. (Each other). _Forget the turning of the earth, denounce the physics of the galaxies. I would sooner stay inside,_ _and_ _test the limits of our chemistry._

Clarke is the first to break the silence. “Lexa?”

Lexa shifts amongst the cushions, assuming a more “appropriate” position for conversation. The attempt is undermined, as Clarke refuses to remove hand from hip-bone.

“Yes, Clarke?”

“Is it weird that I feel kinda bad for him?”

She tenses, terrified that Clarke is going to erase her character development, go back to the damaging familiarity of her old relationship. Maybe she'll say they rushed into things, that Finn can change if she-

“I mean, not in the 'I want to get back together sense,' obviously. Or even in the 'I forgive him,' way. Just... we were friends first, and he was actually sweet, believe it or not.”

Lexa breathes a sigh of relief. “It's not weird.” She kisses the tip of Clarke's nose. “But I think it might mean that you're possibly, _probably_ the most wonderful, thoughtful person ever to exist.”

Clarke makes mock-vomiting sounds. “Yeah, right.”

“I'm serious, Clarke.”

They smile at each other, two high school idiots, believing that every love song ever written was meant for them, that every lipstick shade was formulated, just to smudge on each other's mouths. Matte pink dawn, hue #110.

“I finally figured out where my 'place' is,” Lexa whispers. Clarke doesn't ask her to explain herself.

“You did?”

“M-hm.”

“Where?”

In lei of florid words, she kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her again. Cloaked in the arrogance of a Shakespeare sonnet, all the universe holds its breath.

….........

 

Her mom is preparing to leave for Finn's house as they head downstairs, pancake plans clouded by the jittery collection of keys-coat-shoes, worry lines hardly the catalyst for smiles over cereal.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Clarke asks, even as every instinct tells her to run back to her bedroom, raise the curtain on act ii of “hiding from the world” with Lexa. “I could, um, explain everything again.”

“No. You two should make some breakfast, try to put this out of your mind for a while.”

“I learnt how to make French toast,” Lexa pipes up, brandishing a slice of highly _questionable_ bread. Clarke bites her tongue to keep from blurting “I... you.” They're not there yet. Or, rather, _circumstance_ isn't there yet. _They_ got there a few stops back.

“That's... nice, Lexa.” Her mom checks her watch one, two, three times, before Clarke takes the initiative to shoo her own mother out of their house. She insists on a parting hug, then drives cautiously off.

Lexa assumes the role of “the distracter.” She's painfully well-meaning, and painfully obvious. Coffee is brewed at record speeds, accompanied by a plethora of far too many breakfast foods. The suggestion that they spend the morning “learning lines” is blunter than Clarke's butter knife.

“Really, Lex? You want to run lines when we have the house all to-”

Characteristically, Clarke's preferred method of “distraction” goes right over Lexa's head.

“The play is in less than a month, Clarke. I still have to re-draft the last scene, my expression isn't quite right in act three, and my parents are insisting that I go on a 'whistle stop tour' of, rather literally, a million different colleges in two weeks.”

Clarke frowns into her bowl, now-soggy cornflakes coloured brown-grey instead of gold. She looks up, matches Lexa's stressed out smile. The “unmarred” bliss of domesticity, will have to wait for her mom's return.

“Can I come on the college tour? I haven't really had the chance to think about any of that stuff before.”

She remembers Finn's restaurant diatribe, his “decision” that Clarke study Biology in Miami. She'd sooner be centre-stage in a big city, have Lexa (non-possessively) drive up to see her every weekend.

“It'll be boring,” Lexa warns, a pop tart sprinkle stuck to the corner of her mouth. _Adorable_ really isn't a strong enough word.

“I can do boring. In fact, I think I might kind of _need_ boring right now.”

“Then I'd really _love_ for you to come with me.”

At that, Lexa launches into a vivid description of theatres ten times the size of their high school hall, libraries filled with every book ever transcribed. She even notes the “array” of niche coffee shops, likely ditched in favour of take-out Starbucks, holding hands (just like a real couple!) around the campus lot.

Clarke bites her tongue so hard she draws blood.

 

 

“Finn's parents are taking this very seriously. They'll be having a lengthy talk with him. He won't be bothering you again.”

That appears to be the sole take-away from the half hour visit, with the Collins' apparently “aghast” at the behaviour of their son, and _not_ in any hurry to victim-blame Clarke. She can't quite believe it's all over, just like that.

Hasn't Shakespeare spent the last two decades teaching high-schoolers that happy endings don't exist, that they're all doomed to meet the edge of a dagger, sooner or later? _Could her kiss be my epilogue, cherry blossom shampoo trumps carrion?_

Clarke is dazed, really, half expecting to wake up to forty consecutive texts, phantom fingers gripping her neck. Lexa says that's a “perfectly normal” reaction, stays with her through all of the stuttered rambling. Her comfort cooking gets better.

On the other hand, her mom doesn't prolong any Finn-related discussion. Apart from a few unsubtle “how are you holding up?”s, she mainly attempts to fill silences with science garble, and talk of the play's upcoming dress rehearsal.

Lexa, for her part, insists they practice at every available opportunity.

“What of my name, my parentage? I cannot rival your Lord Orsino, cannot presume to share in this most happy wreck. Did he not love thee, before we had ever met?”

They've turned “the roof” into a mini-theatre, a haven from nosy parents and nosier school friends. Clarke, as per every scene in the script, moves closer to her immovable object.

“Orsino loved me as an image, nought more. I was his fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.” _Is this the fate of all trysts; fragile as the rose? Call it wilful ignorance, but I am certain that that soil doth know us well// that, once wilted, we shall rise again;_ _the garden of girls who held on._

Lexa assumes a rage that may not wholly belong to her character. “Oh, is that so? He is the marble-breasted tyrant, then. Him I will tear out of that cruel eye, before I discard my masculine usurped attire.”

“Gentle Viola, taint not our love. Do not design to share the fate, of poor mad Malvolio. A dark room and bound, sick on his own pride.”

“Fair Olivia, thine honour...”

“Matters not, if I must sacrifice thine life.”

They kiss: as Clarke and Lexa, not Olivia and Viola.

….........

Lexa's anger melts on Clarke's lips, subsides in favour of cotton-candy chapstick. She's still _disgusted_ with Finn, of course, just no longer _seething_ , like the night their sorry quartet sat round Abby's kitchen table.

Clarke wants her to let go of the spite, clouding her writing, rhetoric and life, and Lexa is more than willing to comply, tippex him well and truly out of the picture.

Such a conclusion is a lot easier to reach, with Clarke's mouth now doing _unspeakable_ things beneath her t-shirt, the pair collapsed on their makeshift bed of jackets and blankets. She threads her fingers in blonde hair, Clarke's kisses dipping below the “safe zone” of waistline, threatening to eliminate their denim boundary.

Surely, Lexa can't be about to loose her virginity on a _rooftop_ , of all places...

“Oh, hey, Lexa?”

She suppresses an embarrassing groan, attempts to adopt an aura of cool and calm. “Yes?”

Clarke's own cucumber-cool temperament falters, as she looks up at Lexa through her eyelashes. _If I were an artist// to me, you should never not be posing// an angel resigning// to walk amongst mere mortals._

“I forgot to ask you before, like, formally and stuff... do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Lexa rolls her eyes, pretends like her heart isn't flailing, failing in her chest.“And they say romance is dead. Shakespeare would be proud.”

Clarke nudges her arm, poles apart from “these violent delights.” A pause.

“Of course I'll be your girlfriend.”

The bard turns somersaults in his grave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is kind of short and uneventful but the next one is (hopefully) longer and ties everything together


	5. Chapter 5

They're girlfriends. Actual girlfriends. Girlfriends personified. Larger than life girlfriends. Girlfriends who kiss and hold hands and let their friends squabble over potential “ship names.” (According to Anya, “Clexa” is winning).

They're college girlfriends, smiling “I'm in love with you” smiles as they wander round The New School. Lexa picks violets for Clarke when they break for lunch beside the art room, a fistful of “I remember all your favourites.”

_'Tis more than sweet sound// that breathes upon a bank of violets// love is throned, not on seats of gold// nor chariots of diamond// but beneath a canopy// of most humble lilies._

“Costia was right,” Clarke remarks, when they finally stop flirting long enough to tour the theatre. “I could totally see myself here.”

Lexa laughs because she does, breathless, examining the fabric of (expensive looking) velvet curtains. “What, starring as New York City's newest Juliet?”

Clarke grimaces. “As much as I _loved_ being in Twelfth Night with you, I imagine us in something a little more historical. Julius Caesar, maybe. I'd make a great Mark Antony.”

Lexa ignores the fact that she just said “us” instead of “me.” She tries not to think too wishfully about college, resigns them both to six hour drives and dates every other weekend.

Clarke, however, refuses to be consoled with moderate, quiet sorts of dreams.

“You could write plays, and we, or just me, whatever you're comfortable with, could star in them,” she says, this time whilst they're standing in the middle of an English lecture hall at Columbia. “We'd totally be the Brangelina of the arts world. Wait, is film an art form?”

Lexa wills herself not to blurt out their first “I love you,” surrounded by suited scholarly strangers, chalk clouding the air like perfume. _She_ _'s_ _the way the sky turns milky gold at five pm// somewhere between dusk and dawn: a beauty that deserves more// than distracted glances on the way home from work// only a “thank you” from the soil._

“Clarke...”

“What?”

“What if I don't, you know, get in?”

Clarke responds to her question by listing a catalogue of Lexa's talents and skills, whether or not they're relevant to the course syllabus of an English degree. Is the claim that she looks “wow” in Clarke's clothes, for example, really something that admissions tutors are looking for?

Lexa is sceptical, though she refuses to interrupt her girlfriend's animated ramble, that continues long into their tour of the dorms.

“You're just... you're amazing, Lexa. You turned Shakespeare into a non subtextual lesbian love story, and nobody dies!”

She smiles at that.

“It's so cliché, but you have to believe in yourself. I believe in you.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. You changed my life.” Clarke says the words like they're nothing, doesn't pull them from her chest like bullets. They float like silk through summer breeze, bring the kingdom of Illyria to its knees.

“Me too. I mean, you too. Yes.” They've been officially dating for several weeks, and Lexa still hasn't lost her tongue-tied awkwardness. Perhaps she never will.

“Do you think _I_ could get into any of the colleges we looked at?” Clarke asks, absently flipping through some of the brochures she picked up.

Lexa balks; indignant. “Of course you could, Clarke. Your stage presence is out of this... _oh._ I see.”

Every day is a calender reset, a reminder that, yes, Clarke Griffin is equally as crazy about her, that everything about this utopia is reciprocated.

Nothing, then, is entirely beyond the realms of possibility.

 

….........

They hang out in the theatre after dress rehearsal, still wearing their ridiculous costumes. And by “they” Clarke is also referring to Anya, Raven, Octavia and Costia. As much as she loves having Lexa entirely to herself, they can't _always_ live in their two person bubble.

“In the interests of full disclosure” Lexa told her about her sort of half kiss with Costia. Clarke tries not to get jealous, even as she watches them whisper-laugh in close proximity.

“Hey, Clarke?”

Speak, or, rather, _think_ of the devil.

“Uh, yeah?”

“So Lexa was telling me that she told you that we, I, you know...kissed and stuff.”

She tries not to look annoyed, fake-polite, or uncomfortable. Her face turns into an odd cocktail of all three. “It's fine.” Really, it should be fine. It's not as if they were actually dating. Hell, Clarke kissed Finn plenty of times that night, and several nights after that. Then again, Lexa actually likes Costia as a person. Maybe she even kissed her back a little.

Octavia takes the opportunity to involve herself in the current drama. “You're _totally_ jealous, Clarke.”

“I'm really, really not.”

Lexa's eyes meet hers, and Clarke resists the urge to reach out and kiss her across the circle. Possessive much?

“I'm not jealous,” she says again, fooling no one.

Raven smirks. “Why don't _you_ kiss Costia, make it even.” She pauses, probably for quasi-theatrical effect. Her newly assigned role as Antonio must be bleeding out over the script.“It's only fair.”

“Don't be ridicu-”

“Okay.”

She's leaning in before Clarke has a chance to protest, invading her mouth with strawberry lipgloss. It's a dare kiss, barely there, set to the backdrop of Raven's obnoxious cheer.

“You're welcome.” Costia resumes her previous position, smooths her skirt like nothing happened. “Even.”

Clarke doesn't miss the way Lexa swallows, all restless hands and raised eyebrows. Oh, how the tables have turned. _She's_ the jealous one now, after a kiss conducted for score-keeping purposes. It's actually kind of hot.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Clarke lies, giving her girlfriend a ~meaningful~ glance. She may be generally oblivious, but she'd have to be blind to misinterpret Clarke's intentions.

(Right?)

 

The hallway is quiet, save for a low-piched buzzing coming from the janitor's closet. It's dark, too, only tiny rectangles of light to illuminate battered lockers, reveal stray paint flecks and carved initials. Nice.

Maybe she should _really_ go to the bathroom, or at least hang out near it, text Lexa to make sure she got the message and intends on following. Honestly, if her girlfriend can't read basic facial-

“Clarke? Is that you?”

She freezes, looks up, only one thought rattling round in her skull.

Pleasedon'tbeFinnpleasedon'tbeFinnpleasedon'tbe...

It's Finn. He's hovering by an eerily vacant classroom, all sharp edges and black clothing; blending in with their horror movie setting. It's impossible to tell how long he's been standing there, waiting for her. She hasn't seen him in over a month. No calls, no texts, cold turkey.

Clarke remembers an excerpt from some of Lexa's poetry, poetry that she read aloud in Clarke's garden, blushing as pink as the rose-bush that her mom insisted on planting:

_I am a tempest in powder blue// tell the violent musings of the earth// they should be scared of me, not you._

It's comforting.

“Finn, what the hell are you doing here?” Clarke wills her voice not to shake, her feet to stay planted in place.

“I wanted to see you.”

“What made you think I wanted to see you?”

He has the grace to look sheepish, at least. “I just, uh, I wanted to apologise. For real, not like before.”

“I don't have time for this.” She's half surprised by her own dismissive coldness, twistedly (is that a word?) proud that she can be around him without crumbling. “I'm waiting for Lexa, my _girlfriend_.”

If he's at all surprised by her use of epithet, he shows no sign of it.“Please, Clarke. It'll only take a few minutes, I swear.”

Clarke feels all mighty all powerful, a god in a seventeenth century ball-gown. Finn, on the other hand, is frown lines and messy hair, a forty year old teenager practically begging her to say “yes.”

Whether out of pity, or cruelty, she relents.

“Okay.”

….........

Lexa's excuse to leave is stuttered and flimsy, lips buzzing with the need to kiss Clarke in the hallway. That, or the old bulb in the janitor's closet is playing up again.

She waits for her arm to be tugged, for Clarke to emerge from one of the empty classrooms and push Lexa up against the wall.

Nothing happens.

“Cl-”

She cuts herself off, ducks behind the vending machine beside the hall. It's Clarke and Finn. Finn and Clarke. The dreaded “Flarke.”

Lexa's chest twists _. As certain as the waves to the pebbled shore// I will love her more// than him, than they, than any of them// a sun in the eye_ _of its creator._

She thinks about marching over, positioning herself as a human shield, before deciding that Clarke wouldn't thank her for interfering. “I'm not a child,” she'd say, a streak of wilful arrogance. “I can fight my own battles.”

Instead, Lexa listens.

“... and I got kicked off the football team. My parents, they couldn't even look at me. Always talking about what a 'nice girl' you are. About how close we were when we were kids.”

She winces on Clarke's behalf, well aware that her girlfriend's nostalgia knows no bounds. True to form, Lexa watches her squirm beneath his words, stare a hole into the dirty floor.

“It sucked. But then I started going to, uh, to see a therapist. Anger management stuff. And I realised... I realised how shitty I was, how I must have made you feel.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I know it's hard to believe. I'm not asking for you to take me back, or even for us to be friends again. I just want to apologise, to say that I am so, so sorry, Clarke. For everything.”

The silence stretches on for hours. Lexa grows at least two inches taller and three years older, waiting for Clarke to respond.

“Thank you for your apology.” Wait, what? “I can't forgive you, Finn. I _won't_ forgive you for what you did, therapy or not. But I'm grateful you decided to explain yourself, and I thank you for coming out here to see me after so long.”

With that, Clarke storms off, heads in the direction of the bathroom that Lexa ought to be waiting in. Finn stands there, slack-jawed, before scurrying away towards the main exit. He looks like a kicked puppy, left out in the rain.

It's less heads-rolling-honour-killing than Shakespeare, though (Lexa is convinced) just as effective at turning a hero into a tragedy, and the princess into... well, a more autonomous version of herself.

She follows her girlfriend. They whisper praises to one another in a cramped cubicle, and kiss until it tastes like a new sort of forgiveness; of one's own mind, and born-again body.

“I love you,” Lexa murmurs, combing through blonde hair with her fingertips. “I love you so much, Clarke.”

“I love you too, Lex.” She pauses. “In fact, you're my _Viola_.”

They both laugh at the reference, hands splayed over aching ribs. Lexa thinks she might die of happiness, and that's more than okay with her.

 

 

The second time they say “I love you,” is in front of hundreds upon thousands (okay, maybe that's a _slight_ exaggeration) of spectators, munching popcorn and clutching their play bills.

It's Act 5 Scene 1; drafted, written, and _re_ -drafted by Lexa. Clarke spent several days prior to curtain call, convincing her the work is “more than good enough.”

There's only one way to know for sure.

“What wilt thou be, when time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case? Still hiding amidst the shadows, half Sebastian, and half Viola? Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow, that thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?” Clarke is wonderful, brilliant, Olivia's measured rage curling her lip.

“My lady, I do protest-”

They're interrupted by Raven-Antonio, and a plethora of extras who's names Lexa _would_ know, if she hadn't spent the last three months caught up in all things Clarke Griffin.

“An apple, cleft in two, made whole? How can it be so?” Witty as she is, Raven plays “confused sea-captain” with ease. “Where is thy sister, boy?”

The extras mock-gasp, as Lexa removes her cape and hat, curls framing her grin.“I am all the sisters of my father's house, and all the brothers, too.”

She turns to Clarke, winds a shaky arm around her waist. Clarke steadies Lexa's stage-fright, blinks morse-code assurances. “Where wilt _thou_ be, fair Olivia? Married to thy coveted beauty, or thy mistress, who waits eternally for thee?”

Teasing, Olivia's line reads: “My mistress, who is she?”

“She who loves thee as a bird to the sky, more than jewels and finery. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? I think not, for Olivia is far more beautiful than the month of May.”

That's Anya's cue, the floundering Sir Toby, roped in last minute. “Where is your husband, cousin? Is this he?” She gestures towards Raven, prop ale-bottle flailing wildly.

“No. _This_ is my wife, sirrah. Her I love more than any man who courted me.”

In a rather more modern than seventeenth century fashion, all the servants and nobles of Olivia's household _celebrate_ the reveal.

“A toast, to the Lady Olivia, and her Lady.”

They kiss, as Lexa and Clarke, as Olivia and Viola, for all the world to see. Shakespeare? Not so bad, if read anything but literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I planned on making this longer, but once the angst was basically over I didn't want to drag it out, I hope the ending was okay, thank you to anyone who read till the end.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Clarke seems really ~problematic~ with this cliffhanger ending but I just haven't shown her POV yet... literally. Also my tumblr is http://lizgilllies.tumblr.com/ if anyone wants to ask me anything about this, I'm really excited about this AU I hope the first chapter was okay.


End file.
